This article was produced in partnership with Viant
AI’s affect on the digital promoting ecosystem continues to be a big story in 2026, and adtech agency Viant hopes to capitalize on this development with its new product Outcomes.
Viant already has an automation system referred to as Viant AI that was introduced in late 2024 and that powers Viant’s advert shopping for platform. Outcomes is a product constructed on that platform, and is designed to run advert campaigns to attain particular enterprise targets, with minimal human involvement.
On launch, advertisers can use Outcomes to satisfy marketing campaign targets primarily based on cost-per-action and return on advert spend. More options are in improvement to hit mid- and upper-funnel targets.
This resolution was essential to reckon with the digital ecosystems’ rising fragmentation mentioned Viant cofounder and COO Chris Vanderhook.
“The complexity across six or seven channels, all the different formats, all the audience segments — it’s incredible,” he mentioned. “Advertisers were telling us, ‘Hey, we need more automation. This is becoming too complex.’ That was the call we were answering.”
MacKenzie-Childs, which manufactures whimsical ceramics and dinnerware, participated in a beta take a look at that pitted Viant AI towards a human dealer managing a marketing campaign in a DSP. The human additionally had a bonus: they might use retargeting, the place Viant couldn’t.
But Viant’s resolution beat the human dealer by 2.3x on a straight cost-per-action foundation.
“The media plan out of the gate was so relevant that Viant AI computed on the open internet the top placements of ads that should produce results, and it was right,” mentioned Viant cofounder and CEO Tim Vanderhook. “And when it wasn’t right, it was making changes to pricing, it shut publishers off, and it rotated out creatives that stopped performing in a seamless, autonomous way.”
Viant additionally hopes Outcomes strengthens its competitiveness towards walled gardens like Google, Meta, and Amazon, which dominate advert spend. The adtech agency is doing this by making Outcomes as clear as doable.
“With Outcomes, you see where the media is going to run, you see what the performance is, you see the channel mix,” Chris mentioned. “We don’t think we need to trade autonomy for transparency.”
Viant leverages its proprietary fashions and information to coach Viant AI. One mannequin was for provide high quality, rating advert placement by way of high-quality visitors or low-quality visitors. Another centered on related TV, combining viewers information from IRIS.TV, which Viant acquired in late 2024, and Viant’s personal Household ID, which permits for exact concentrating on in a post-cookie world.
“We’ve been in this space a long time. It’s incredible to have a clear line of how we’re going to operate the business on behalf of our clients only,” Chris mentioned. “It makes it really easy for everyone who works at Viant to know what our mission is every day.”