Concord vs Smartly

Concord Enhances AI Media Buying with Brand Control Features

On September 17, 2026, Concord announced new capabilities for its agentic AI-powered programmatic advertising platform, designed to give brands more control over AI-driven media buying. The platform combines historical campaign intelligence with deterministic operating rules, allowing advertisers to encode budgets, naming conventions, targeting, brand safety standards, approvals, and media playbooks. This ensures consistent campaign execution across teams, markets, and agencies. Concord's AI learns from past campaigns to improve future ones, while brands retain supervision through their own rules and approvals. The goal is to make media buying smarter without sacrificing control, enhancing operational efficiency and brand safety.

• Concord announced new capabilities on September 17, 2026.
• The platform integrates historical campaign intelligence with deterministic operating rules.
• Advertisers can encode budgets, targeting, brand safety, and approvals into execution.

Concord’s Agentic Media Platform Raises $3M Seed

Concord, a France-based agentic media execution platform founded by Nathan Venezia, announced a $3 million seed round backed by A16Z Scout, Drysdale, Motier Ventures, Better Angle and industry angels. Concord positions itself as an execution layer rather than a DSP: its AI agents handle campaign activation across Google, Meta and Amazon via direct API integrations, while optimization decisions and reporting remain separate. The company argues against relying on Model Context Protocol (MCP) for deep platform integrations. Concord is a six-person startup planning to double headcount with hires in sales, engineering and operations and to evolve from a SaaS product to a headless, embeddable architecture. The new funding will be used to simplify client integrations and expand customer development and support in the US and UK.

• Concord announced $3 million in seed funding.
• Seed investors include A16Z Scout, Drysdale, Motier Ventures, Better Angle and industry angels.
• Concord is an agentic execution platform that integrates directly with Google, Meta and Amazon via their full APIs.

TIMBALAND TO HEADLINE SMARTLY’S ADVANCE IN NEW YORK CITY ON SEPTEMBER 29

Smartly announces that Timbaland will headline its ADVANCE event in New York City on September 29.

Timbaland to Headline Smartly’s Advance in New York City on September 29

September 2, 2026 ### TIMBALAND TO HEADLINE SMARTLY’S ADVANCE IN NEW YORK CITY ON SEPTEMBER 29

Smartly ADVANCE Returns to New York Sept. 29

Smartly announced that its flagship conference ADVANCE will return to New York City on September 29, 2026, at Spring Studios, convening more than 750 senior marketing, agency and technology leaders. The agenda will include speakers from across the marketing ecosystem — including Accenture Song, DoorDash, Google, Meta, NBCUniversal, The New York Times, Pinterest, Reddit, TikTok, WPP and YouTube — and opening remarks from Smartly CEO Laura Desmond. The event features two tracks, Creative AI and Commerce AI, and partners such as Google, LinkedIn, Pinterest, Roku, Snapchat and TikTok. NBA Champion Josh Hart and Matthew Hillman (CEO, PATH Talent) will appear in a closing conversation. Registration is open and qualified attendees may be eligible for complimentary admission.

• Smartly's ADVANCE conference returns to New York City on September 29, 2026 at Spring Studios.
• The event will convene more than 750 senior marketing and advertising leaders from brands, agencies and technology platforms.
• Agenda features leaders from Accenture Song, DoorDash, Google, Horizon Media, Meta, NBCUniversal, The New York Times, Pinterest, Reddit, TikTok, WPP, Wpromote and YouTube.