PMG

Butler/Till pilots AI media buying for audio with iHeart

Independent agency Butler/Till and iHeartMedia ran a four-week pilot in July–August 2026 testing agentic AI media-buying agents on streaming audio and podcast inventory for an unnamed U.S. agricultural client. The pilot used two matched AI agents (one from Butler/Till, one from iHeartMedia) connected via an MCP server and executed just under $10,000 in media buys via a direct agency-to-publisher purchase. Butler/Till reported a 42% reduction in campaign CPMs versus the client’s direct-buy benchmark and a higher share of premium non-skippable mid-roll podcast placements (48% vs an estimated 33% in the traditional plan). iHeartMedia said it will expand inventory availability — including broadcast radio later in 2026 — and make its Audiograph solution available through Amazon’s DSP from mid-September.

Anoki AI Wins AI Marketing Copilot of the Year

Anoki AI announced that ContextIQ, its AI-native CTV planning platform, was named “AI Marketing Copilot of the Year” in the 9th annual MarTech Breakthrough Awards. ContextIQ provides scene-level video understanding—analyzing visuals, audio, dialogue, objects, emotional tone and narrative—to inform CTV planning and activation. The platform’s Copilot capability includes features called Creative Analyzer and Brief-to-plan prompting, enabling natural-language briefs to generate contextually matched scenes, brand-suitability filtering, scale forecasts, and activation-ready media plans. The recognition highlights Anoki’s approach to contextual intelligence for Connected TV and the product is available to Anoki partners.

Moloco launches agency partner program to expand beyond mobile

Moloco, a performance ad-tech firm known for mobile programmatic advertising, has launched an agency partner program to expand its client base and move beyond mobile into CTV and other media. The program was co-designed with a group of about a dozen agencies — including Dentsu UK & Ireland, PMG, M+C Saatchi Performance, SplitMetrics, RocketLab and Admiral Media — and emphasizes co-selling, joint pitching, co-building and shared case studies. Sunil Rayan, Moloco’s chief business officer, said the initiative aims to educate agencies on AI advertising and outcome metrics, clarify overlap between performance marketing and AI, and scale via partners. Moloco’s AI-driven workflow filters fraud, matches audiences, recommends ads and prices, bids, and then evaluates attribution for subsequent bidding decisions.