Nine AI tool announcements from CES 2026
To align with this year’s Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas, several global media companies announced new AI tools and features to make media buying more efficient for advertisers.
The announcements suggest that the race to develop AI products — despite their apparent lack of competitive differentiation — shows no signs of slowing. They suggest that business leaders are confident AI-driven efficiencies will drive growth in the advertising industry, whether through automated planning and buying, creative development, reduced labour costs, or, as many claim, improved effectiveness.
In communicating these various launches at the annual technology showcase in the Nevada desert, the media industry C-suite leaned on jargon-filled language and big claims, despite a relative lack of evidence that AI tools have demonstrably improved output.
Several companies insisted that the AI tools are “human-driven” and designed to enhance, rather than replace, human creativity.
Lost in the rush to AI development is the potential impact on energy consumption and sustainability goals, topics that were notably absent from any announcement seen by The Media Leader.
Here’s a roundup of the relevant announcements from this year’s CES.
Reddit launches Max Campaigns
Reddit unveiled Max Campaigns, a new feature that allows advertisers to automate targeting and creative selection.
Max Campaigns operate similarly to the AI tools launched by several other digital platforms in recent years, such as Meta’s Advantage+ and Google’s Performance Max. Such tools purport to make ad planning and buying more efficient and accessible, especially to smaller businesses.
Apart from requiring fewer steps for marketers to set up and manage, Max Campaigns can be used to generate “Reddit-ready” creative assets, including headline suggestions that “use trending Redditor lingo”, thumbnail generation, and a forthcoming AI-based video cropping feature aimed at making it easier to import videos from other social platforms.
Within Max Campaigns, there is also a new reporting feature: Top Audience Personas. The tool clusters audiences into categories (e.g., “new parents” or “ambitious home cooks”), providing insight into the types of consumers most engaged with a given campaign.
The social media company has been alpha-testing the feature with over 600 businesses and claims that early testers saw a 17% lower CPA and a 27% higher conversion rate on average compared to business-as-usual campaigns. The Media Leader has not independently verified such ad performance uplift.
Separately, Ofcom’s latest Online Nation report found that the platform has overtaken TikTok as the UK’s fourth-most-visited social media service, nearly doubling its number of British users since 2023.
Three in five Brits now use the site, driven by growth among users aged 18-24 and a surge in popularity in Google search results.
In Q3, Reddit reported that daily active unique users grew 19% year on year. The number of ad conversions has also more than doubled, the company claimed.
NBCUniversal introduces agentic TV buying
NBCUniversal, in partnership with independent agency RPA, FreeWheel, and Newton Research, has introduced a new way to buy linear and digital premium video ads through AI agents.
The proof-of-concept agents, which the conglomerate claims are the first of their kind, can orchestrate cross-platform video buying and optimisation in real time across NBCUniversal’s portfolio.
NBCUniversal said the first execution using the proof-of-concept would feature “a prominent brand’s Q1 2026 investment”, including its premium placements against American football games. The company claims this will be the first time an AI agent will automate live sports inventory on linear TV.
“NBCUniversal is showcasing that agentic AI is part of the future of media buying, even for premium live sports content,” said Mark Marshall, chairman of global advertising and partnerships at NBCUniversal. “We expect agentic AI collaboration to further automate the way inventory is bought and sold, and we are on the leading edge of this revolution with FreeWheel, Newton Research and RPA.”
The development is also notable for being a real-world transaction driven by agent-to-agent collaboration. On the sell-side, Comcast’s Freewheel and NBCUniversal are also deploying AI sales agents for both linear and digital inventory.
“Historically, delivering ads live isn’t easy, especially with large-scale events like sports,” added FreeWheel general manager Mark McKee. “Now, with our launch of true agentic buying — including for the most premium video inventory, live sports — something that seemed unimaginable just a short time ago is real, marking a milestone for FreeWheel, NBCUniversal, Newton Research, and RPA, as well as the industry.
“From product development to campaign execution, AI has the potential to fuel CTV’s evolution into an automated, outcome-oriented channel. This first-of-its-kind solution is a fundamental step on this journey, one that is also a key part of FreeWheel’s new suite of advanced AI tools.”
WPP launches agent hub
WPP has launched Agent Hub, an internal app store featuring a set of “Super Agents” trained on proprietary data to assist clients with various marketing tasks. The hub is accessible via WPP’s AI platform, Open.
Four initial agents are accessible within the Hub. They include:
The Brand Analytics Agent, which provides information derived from WPP’s proprietary Brand Asset Valuator data.
The Behavioural Science Agent, which is designed to emulate “the thought process of a behavioural scientist” in support of client strategy.
The Analogies Agent, which acts as “a strategic muse” by seeking inspiration and parallel situations from other industries.
Creative Brain, which is designed as an “ideation sparring partner”.
“Agent Hub is how we deliver WPP excellence at scale for our clients,” WPP’s chief technology officer, Stephan Pretorius, said. “This is about human brilliance, amplified by AI, enabling us to offer clients commercial models based on business outcomes, not simply time and materials.”
Pretorius insisted that “every agent” in the Hub is “human-driven”, given that they draw from “decades of insight, judgment and expertise of our people to solve real client problems”.
WPP has substantially embraced AI over the past year as part of a broader effort to expand the number of potential clients it can serve. New CEO Cindy Rose claimed on the company’s Q3 earnings call that WPP Open Pro, the latest edition of its AI marketing platform, would “expand our addressable market and serve the long tail of smaller companies and emerging brands who may not be in the market for the sort of full-service offer that we typically provide to large multinational clients”.
WPP CEO labels group’s performance ‘unacceptable’ as it looks to SMEs
Havas teases AVA, a ‘global LLM portal’
Havas has announced a “unified, human-led AI ecosystem”, dubbed AVA, that will begin rolling out at an unspecified date in the spring.
The feature follows the company’s nearly €1bn investment in Converged.AI. Havas claims it is designed to provide “trusted access to insights, agents and proprietary intelligence” and that it will increase efficiency while “ensuring safety and compliance”.
AVA connects users to existing large language models, including GPT-5, Claude Opus 4.5, and Gemini 3.
At CES, chairman and CEO Yannick Bolloré emphasised his view that AI “amplifies human creativity” rather than replaces it. He referred to AVA as a “catalyst for reinventing collaboration and creativity”.
“We’re building an AI-driven, human-powered future where innovation and imagination work hand in hand to grow our clients’ brands in an increasingly complex world,” he said. “In this context, AVA securely unifies leading AI in one portal for our teams and clients.”
Other recent AI-driven developments from Havas include a generative engine optimisation (GEO) tool, announced in August, that provides insights into how popular large language models perceive different brands.
Disney unveils video generation and AI planning tools
Disney announced a plethora of AI-supported tools for advertisers, including a video generation tool designed for smaller advertisers to be able to advertise on CTV inventory.
The tool supports creative versioning by audience, context and placement. Disney claims it can create “high-quality, CTV-ready commercials” using existing brand assets and guidelines.
Among the first to test AI video generation with the conglomerate are agency Known and brand Instinct Pet Food.
The development follows similar launches of generative AI video tools by UK broadcasters last year, including both Channel 4 and ITV.
In addition, Disney has developed a new AI-powered internal tool that aims to make the media planning process with Disney “faster and easier” by capturing and communicating campaign objectives, audience intent and more.
“These are tools and technology we’re bringing to advertisers because we believe they solve actual problems and drive actual value for you,” Tony Donohoe, Disney’s EVP of advertising platforms, commented.
Separately, at CES, Disney announced that Disney+ would add a vertical video feed later this year. The company seemingly hopes to compete with the likes of Instagram Reels and TikTok to become “a must-visit daily destination”.
Stagwell introduces ‘The Machine’
Challenger holding group Stagwell has launched an “AI-powered operating system” aptly named The Machine. The OS, which was demoed at CES, was built by subsidiary Code and Theory, whose clients have already begun testing it.
Its aim is to integrate existing marketing tools into a single system to help clients improve media and creative efficiency and better optimise campaigns and other operations. This is done by “enhancing” tools like Figma, Slack, Teams, Adobe and performance dashboards through a unified system of AI agents.
CEO Mark Penn positioned the launch as part of Stagwell’s broader AI strategy, including strategic partnerships with Palantir and Gradial inked in November. “This moment underscores Stagwell’s ability to deliver best-in-class solutions for clients and lead the industry through the AI era,” he said.
Critics of Palantir have warned that its models could infringe upon data privacy and have condemned the company for aiding surveillance efforts behind the Trump administration’s attempts to arrest and deport immigrants, which have included legal residents and American citizens.
Omnicom signs Google partnership
According to reports by Digiday, Omnicom is working with Google to create a new Consumer Prompt Insights Agent, which aims to “empower brands with far deeper insights” into how to make better use of AI search.
The goal of the agent is to help marketers understand consumer intent now that new forms of search can deliver “deeper insights” in what a consumer is looking for.
Omnicom Media Group’s chief product officer, North America, Megan Pagliuca, explained that the Consumer Prompt Insights Agent is “about getting to what people are asking, understanding their intent, and then changing content in a variety of ways to enable that, which then also feeds back to that loop of Gemini and AI Overviews, where they’re asking questions”.
SVP of search Michael Sondak added: “As we start to aggregate these data sources, which today are separate, and use the agent that we’re building to combine them, our teams will start to be able to see demand trends — pockets of new prompts and queries to […] inform net new content.”
Yahoo DSP integrates agentic AI
Yahoo has built agentic AI features into its DSP. Planning, activation, optimisation and measurement can now all be automated within the platform.
Yahoo is calling the agentic capabilities a “next-generation intelligence layer” that is additive to the extant Yahoo DSP AI engine, Blueprint.
The launch is based upon a “flexible framework” dubbed “Yours, Mine and Ours”. Advertisers can use their own AI models, use Yahoo DSP native agents, or connect both via APIs or Model Context Protocols (MCPs).
Agentic features are available globally, will an additional development roadmap planned through 2026.
“Agentic AI changes how media buying actually gets done,” commented Yahoo DSP general manager Adam Roodman. “By building it directly into Yahoo DSP and allowing advertisers to connect their own AI alongside ours, we’re giving teams a faster, more flexible way to plan, optimise and act, without sacrificing transparency or control”.
Universal Music Group partners with Nvidia for AI music discovery
Universal Music Group (UMG) has inked a partnership with chipmaker Nvidia to “explore new avenues” to utilise AI for improved music discovery, engagement and consumption “beyond current constructs of search and personalisation”.
The collaboration will leverage Nvidia’s AI infrastructure alongside UMG’s music catalogue.
New efforts include improving and expanding the Nvidia Music Flamingo, a “large audio-language model” aimed at helping consumers discover music. The model processes full-length tracks up to 15 minutes and can interpret their musical elements and transcribe lyrics.
Artists can use the model to analyse, describe and share music. Likewise, broadcasters and platforms could use Music Flamingo to help surface songs by their “emotional narrative” or “cultural resonance” rather than by genre or tempo.
Throughout the partnership, Nvidia has committed to working with UMG and its artists to receive feedback to help “empower established artists to engage with their fans in deeper, more interactive ways”. Emerging artists, the companies claim, will also have access to “unprecedented opportunities to be discovered”.
Musical artists in Britain have largely rejected the business community’s embrace of AI. Last year, the likes of Elton John, Mick Jagger, Kate Bush and Dua Lipa penned multiple open letters to the Government pleading for leaders to enforce existing copyright protections, which they allege have been infringed by AI companies.