Omnicom’s Ben Hovaness: Brands Need a Unified Response to AI
Two billion people now use AI platforms regularly, up from a negligible base just a few years ago. For brands, the implications reach across paid media, owned content, and earned media simultaneously. That is precisely why Ben Hovaness argues that no single agency discipline can address them alone.
“The biggest impacts that brands are seeing are felt across a variety of different areas, inclusive of paid media, inclusive of their own content, inclusive of PR,” Hovaness, evp, Global Specialized Capabilities at Omnicom Media, told Beet.TV contributor David Kaplan at the Beet.TV Leadership Summit with Omnicom Media during Advertising Week New York. “We think the right approach is holistic, stitching together different capabilities from across the agency to provide a unified solution for brands.”
The core shift driving that need is how AI platforms handle discovery. Where search sent people to destinations, AI synthesizes complete answers by drawing on brand-controlled properties, social presence, and earned media across the web all at once.
PR shapes AI’s knowledge about your brand
The role of public relations in AI visibility is one of the less-discussed implications of the shift from search to generative answers. Because AI systems retrieve information from sources a brand doesn’t control and stitch it into responses, what third parties say about a brand now directly influences what consumers hear.
“A lot of what is falling into the answer is information that’s being retrieved from sources not directly controlled by the brand. That information is being combined with sources that are controlled by the brand to stitch together the final response,” Hovaness said. “That’s why PR has such a huge role to play.”
Accuracy is an active concern. When factual errors surface in AI-generated responses, whether from external sources or a brand’s own website, addressing them requires coordinated action across media, content, and communications teams.
GEO is not a point solution
Omnicom’s generative engine optimization offering spans paid media, content, PR, and commerce rather than residing within any single practice group. That structure reflects the nature of the problem.
“Accuracy issues aren’t something that can be addressed exclusively by a media agency. We need to work jointly and bring a unified solution to clients,” Hovaness said. “Thus far we’ve been getting a very positive reception to that in the marketplace.”
For brands preparing for an increasingly agentic consumer environment, two near-term priorities stand out. Making owned and earned content technically accessible and sufficiently detailed for AI ingestion is the first. Understanding that AI will make direct product comparisons easier; and that brand differentiation may carry less weight in some categories is the second.
Industry standards are catching up
The Media Rating Council has launched a multi-phase standards project covering AI measurement, from how prompts are counted to how invalid traffic rules apply when AI scrapers are beneficial rather than harmful. A separate MRC effort launching next year will address accountability standards for AI buying agents including Google’s Performance Max and Meta’s Advantage Plus.
“AI buying agents have become a huge force in the industry over the last several years. There haven’t yet been standards around how these agents should operate, how they should be transparent and accountable to the advertisers using them,” Hovaness said. “If you’re interested, these are all open to participation from all types of industry stakeholders. If you want to get involved, please do.”
You’re watching “The Beet.TV Leadership Summit with Omnicom Media at Advertising Week 2026,” presented by Cuebiq, Databricks, Newton Research, Roku and Teads. For more videos from this summit, please visit this page.
Two billion people now use AI platforms regularly, up from a negligible base just a few years ago. For brands, the implications reach across paid media, owned content, and earned media simultaneously. That is precisely why Ben Hovaness argues that no single agency discipline can address them alone.
“The biggest impacts that brands are seeing are felt across a variety of different areas, inclusive of paid media, inclusive of their own content, inclusive of PR,” Hovaness, evp, Global Specialized Capabilities at Omnicom Media, told Beet.TV contributor David Kaplan at the Beet.TV Leadership Summit with Omnicom Media during Advertising Week New York. “We think the right approach is holistic, stitching together different capabilities from across the agency to provide a unified solution for brands.”
The core shift driving that need is how AI platforms handle discovery. Where search sent people to destinations, AI synthesizes complete answers by drawing on brand-controlled properties, social presence, and earned media across the web all at once.
PR shapes AI’s knowledge about your brand
The role of public relations in AI visibility is one of the less-discussed implications of the shift from search to generative answers. Because AI systems retrieve information from sources a brand doesn’t control and stitch it into responses, what third parties say about a brand now directly influences what consumers hear.
“A lot of what is falling into the answer is information that’s being retrieved from sources not directly controlled by the brand. That information is being combined with sources that are controlled by the brand to stitch together the final response,” Hovaness said. “That’s why PR has such a huge role to play.”
Accuracy is an active concern. When factual errors surface in AI-generated responses, whether from external sources or a brand’s own website, addressing them requires coordinated action across media, content, and communications teams.
GEO is not a point solution
Omnicom’s generative engine optimization offering spans paid media, content, PR, and commerce rather than residing within any single practice group. That structure reflects the nature of the problem.
“Accuracy issues aren’t something that can be addressed exclusively by a media agency. We need to work jointly and bring a unified solution to clients,” Hovaness said. “Thus far we’ve been getting a very positive reception to that in the marketplace.”
For brands preparing for an increasingly agentic consumer environment, two near-term priorities stand out. Making owned and earned content technically accessible and sufficiently detailed for AI ingestion is the first. Understanding that AI will make direct product comparisons easier; and that brand differentiation may carry less weight in some categories is the second.
Industry standards are catching up
The Media Rating Council has launched a multi-phase standards project covering AI measurement, from how prompts are counted to how invalid traffic rules apply when AI scrapers are beneficial rather than harmful. A separate MRC effort launching next year will address accountability standards for AI buying agents including Google’s Performance Max and Meta’s Advantage Plus.
“AI buying agents have become a huge force in the industry over the last several years. There haven’t yet been standards around how these agents should operate, how they should be transparent and accountable to the advertisers using them,” Hovaness said. “If you’re interested, these are all open to participation from all types of industry stakeholders. If you want to get involved, please do.”
You’re watching “The Beet.TV Leadership Summit with Omnicom Media at Advertising Week 2026,” presented by Cuebiq, Databricks, Newton Research, Roku and Teads. For more videos from this summit, please visit this page.
