Tailwinds of Transformation, a Beet.TV Leadership Series at CES 2026, presented by FreeWheel
Comcast’s Karen Babcock: AI Can Transform Ads From ‘Interruption’ to ‘Complement’ of Content
LAS VEGAS — Artificial intelligence can reshape advertising from disruptive interruption to emotional complement by matching ad tone to surrounding content, preventing jarring transitions that produce negative attention as opposed to the good kind. “Let’s say someone was watching Good Will Hunting. It’s the iconic scene where Ben Affleck’s in the bar in Boston; it’s […]
Why Agencies Should Never Fully Outsource Video Buying to AI
LAS VEGAS — The advertising industry is racing to automate video buying, but one agency executive is urging a more measured approach. Rather than handing over the keys to the machines, Mike Treon, head of CTV and video strategy at PMG, thinks the real opportunity lies in collapsing repetitive workflows while keeping humans firmly in […]
AI Is Turning Static TV Ad Packages Into Real-Time, Cross-Platform Orchestration: FreeWheel’s Soo Jin Oh
LAS VEGAS – For years, buying premium video advertising meant navigating a maze of separate workflows, incompatible systems, and manual processes that kept linear television and streaming in distinct silos. But that fragmentation is now collapsing under the weight of artificial intelligence, which is reshaping how advertisers access and activate across the entire video landscape. […]
AI Agents Will Make Millisecond Optimizations Humans Can’t, Dentsu’s McDonagh Says
LAS VEGAS — The future of premium video advertising may be decided in milliseconds – faster than any human trader could ever react. That’s the promise of agentic buying, which enables autonomous systems to optimize campaigns at the line-item level in real time. The technology represents a fundamental shift in how media is transacted, moving […]
Live Sports Advertising Edges Toward Agentic Automation: NBCU’s Ryan McConville
LAS VEGAS – At CES 2026, Comcast’s NBCUniversal rolled out an idea that sounds futuristic but solves an old headache: buying live sports ads without losing your sanity. Ryan McConville, chief product officer and EVP of ad products at NBCUniversal, said the company is testing agentic AI to automate live sports buying across streaming and […]
AI Agents are Starting to Buy TV Ads for Each Other
The complexity of purchasing premium video across linear and streaming endpoints has long plagued the industry, creating friction that often sends budgets flowing toward simpler social platforms. As artificial intelligence matures from generative creative tools into autonomous transaction capabilities, the machinery of media trading is beginning to mimic the speed of high-frequency finance. But while […]





