AI has become a dominant force across industries, but in programmatic advertising, it’s more than just a buzzword – it’s the backbone. While artificial intelligence enables us to automate and optimize media buying at lightning speed, the real differentiator lies in the human strategies that shape how AI is applied. At Coegi, we believe that a future-focused, human-led, AI-powered approach is the key to building campaigns that are not just efficient, but genuinely impactful.
Putting AI in Action to Build a Programmatic Powerhouse
Programmatic media is built on AI principles. Real-time bidding powers automated auctions that determine which ads are served, when, and to whom. Every millisecond, algorithms weigh thousands of data points to place bids on ad inventory.
When a client wants to reach women aged 50–64 who enjoy cooking, AI systems instantly evaluate users and environments to prioritize those who best match the criteria. This process ensures efficient budget allocation and high-value impression delivery, all in the blink of an eye.
AI also enables smarter pacing by analyzing performance trends. It identifies which hours drive the highest win rates and dynamically reallocates budget in response. Without AI, these insights would take teams days or weeks to uncover. With it, they’re available nearly instantly.
Audience building showcases another area where AI flexes its strength. From demographic traits like gender and age to contextual signals such as weather or geography, AI-based tools can predict which audience segments are most likely to engage. Sometimes they even forecast behaviors tied to future events, like holiday shopping spikes. These layers of intelligence help us design media strategies that are timely, relevant, and adaptable.
The Human Imperative Powers Strategy with Soul
Despite AI’s strengths, human oversight remains essential, especially when it comes to strategy and ethics. No two campaigns should be identical. Each brand has a unique voice, tone, and purpose. While AI can optimize for numbers, it can’t yet understand the subtlety of storytelling.
AI often favors what performs best at scale, leaning into segments that deliver the biggest numbers. But that approach may overlook audiences just outside core targeting parameters who might offer long-term value. A human strategist asks deeper questions: What about those we aren’t reaching? Are we valuing performance over relevance? Are we honoring the brand’s voice and message?
Ethical considerations are equally important. AI doesn’t inherently know what’s brand-safe or what constitutes a risk. Humans must program those boundaries, ensuring ad placements don’t appear in problematic environments or on low-quality “made-for-advertising” (MFA) sites. It’s our job to emphasize where value lies. AI can help us execute, but we define what success looks like.
Smarter Reporting, Clearer Storytelling
One of the most underappreciated ways AI shows up is in reporting. AI excels at processing massive amounts of data, turning log-level files into usable summaries, pivot tables, and visualizations. Need a performance breakdown from 11am to 8pm over the past 30 days? AI can generate it in seconds.
But the numbers alone don’t tell the full story. That’s where digital specialists come in. They interpret performance trends through the lens of campaign objectives and audience behavior. A high click-through rate isn’t inherently good unless we understand what drove it, how it compares to benchmarks, and what it means for business outcomes. At Coegi, we see AI as the engine that runs the data, but humans still steer the narrative.
Coegi’s investment in improving our reporting workflows reflects this philosophy. Our client experience and operations teams are constantly refining how insights are presented and interpreted. The goal is to make sure clients receive clear, actionable performance stories that align with their goals.
Building Our Own Tools: Innovation from the Inside Out
Unlike many larger agencies that simply plug into pre-built AI tools, Coegi has taken an agile, hands-on approach. Our innovation team has developed proprietary platforms like Caliber and Resonance, which reflect our belief that innovation should be proactive, not reactive.
Caliber helps us optimize supply path efficiency and eliminate waste, specifically impressions served on MFA sites or in low-engagement environments. It evaluates inventory sources and flags placements that don’t align with campaign goals or client standards. With Caliber, we’re buying placements efficiently and ethically.
Resonance focuses on creative intelligence. It analyzes design elements like color theory and layout to evaluate whether an ad is likely to capture user attention. While we aren’t a creative agency, we care deeply about ensuring that every impression tells a story. Tools like Resonance help make that story as compelling as possible.
Preparing for the Future: Audio, CTV, and Beyond
Looking ahead, the future holds AI that becomes even more intuitive and multimodal. Already, contextual data allows us to target based on article content or webpage keywords. But what happens when AI can hear and see what a user is experiencing?
Imagine being able to serve a tourism ad during a travel podcast because the AI identified the subject matter via audio recognition. Or recommending a dramatic TV series based on a viewer’s affinity for suspense, identified through CTV consumption patterns. This type of intent-based targeting is becoming increasingly scalable, and Coegi is already preparing for it.
We’re partnering with contextual data providers and sustainability-focused tools like Scope3 to future-proof our strategy. We’re also experimenting with IAS for supply path optimization and brand safety, ensuring not only smarter targeting but more responsible sourcing as well.
AI Is the Engine. Humans Are the Drivers.
At Coegi, we don’t just use AI – we shape it. We ask better questions, set smarter goals, and design strategies that blend machine efficiency with human empathy. AI is here to stay, and its role in programmatic media will only deepen. But without the guidance of thoughtful, brand-conscious humans, it’s just an engine without a map.
By combining the speed and scale of AI with the creativity and conscience of our specialists, we’re creating programmatic campaigns that are not only high-performing, but truly meaningful to business outcomes.