Diving overview:
- PMG is piloting Comcast technology platform FreeWheel’s new artificial intelligence agent infrastructure designed to streamline premium video transactions, according to a press release.
- This infrastructure leverages a suite of intelligence tools and FreeWheel’s Model Context Protocol server to embed AI within premium video transactions, allowing buyers to optimize performance and automate workflows in real-time.
- The partnership with FreeWheel comes as PMG repositions itself to align with the industry’s growing focus on AI, including a new “Engineered for Impact” tagline. The global independent marketing agency also continues to expand, opening new offices in Mexico City and Toronto.
Dive Insight:
PMG is among a growing list of agencies betting on AI as the way forward, as demonstrated by both its repositioning and its partnership with FreeWheel. The agency kicked off its rebranding last week with a letter from founder and CEO George Postefanoff that reflects the Dallas-based company’s AI ambitions and touts that its proprietary operating system, Alli, is “built to help modern businesses thrive” by creating continuity between decisions and outcomes.
“As AI reshapes workflows and the lines between content, media, and commerce continue to blur, the gap between insight and action will widen,” Postefanov wrote in the letter. “Companies that put structures in place to fill that gap will take the lead.”
PMG is an initial pilot of FreeWheel’s new AI agent infrastructure, allowing clients to use the functionality within the Alli operating system. This infrastructure is built from FreeWheel’s MCP server, which provides the foundation for AI agents to communicate directly with FreeWheel’s platform, and intelligence tools that monitor trading performance, analyze spend and inventory quality, and automate decision-making.
Within Alli, advertisers can use the FreeWheel solution to analyze trading performance, optimize streaming campaigns more efficiently, and enable more real-time optimization.
“AI in today’s industry is often just a wrapper around a common model. What we’ve built with FreeWheel is true technical interoperability,” Mike Treon, head of connected TV and video strategy at PMG, said in a statement.
PMG’s latest move comes as the agency looks to expand its business. In February, the company announced the opening of new offices in Toronto and Mexico City, the latter of which is intended to serve as a strategic hub for PMG’s Latin American operations. PMG employs more than 1,000 people worldwide and has worked with brands such as Apple, Nike, Sephora, and Intuit.
Many agencies are pushing solutions designed to help marketers translate the use of AI into real-world outcomes, but analysts are becoming skeptical about how far such bets can go. Last week, Publicis Group acquired AdgeAI, an AI-powered creative measurement and analytics startup. This was to appeal to marketers who grapple with large amounts of content and struggle to maintain quality. This trend has become even more prevalent amidst the generative AI boom.
