The Week in Data Marketing, MarTech and AI: January 10, 2025 edition

Welcome to The Week in Data, MarTech and AI, a weekly roundup from Quad Insights that sums up the latest news surrounding the technology–driven transformation of marketing. 

At CES this week, Nvidia introduced AI Blueprints, a platform for developers that simplifies the creation of AI agents. In a blog post, Nvidia describes AI agents as “knowledge robots” that can “reason, plan and take action” in automating multi-step, complex workflows across the enterprise. In its announcement, Nvidia highlighted the release of several AI Blueprints, including two with relevance to marketers: one for agents that provide real-time insights from video and one for automatically creating podcast-style dialogues from complex PDF reports.

Separate from CES, Accenture just issued its Technology Vision 2025 report, which calls on managers to prepare for an “imminent world in which AI is everywhere and acting autonomously on behalf of people” through AI agents, ZDNet’s Vala Afshar reports. Accenture points out that the development of agents requires a paradigm shift regarding the extent to which organizations are willing to trust AI to make its own decisions. Current systems tend to be rules-based and predictable, Accenture says, while AI agents act as “cognitive digital brains” that can take action on their own. “After all,” the report states, “we can only let systems be as autonomous as we trust them.”

More on AI agents:

• “How To Solve Data Readiness Bottlenecks With AI Agents” (Forbes)
• “Microsoft reveals new AI agents for the automotive and mobility industry at CES 2025” (Technology Record)
• “How Are Companies Using AI Agents? Here’s a Look at Five Early Users of the Bots” (The Wall Street Journal)

The number of hours of video captured each year by an estimated 1.5 billion enterprise-level cameras worldwide, according to Nvidia. Of that amount, less than 1% is ever watched live.

Several companies used CES as a platform for announcing initiatives involving programmatic ad buying:

• Comcast’s FreeWheel, in partnership NBCUniversal, Fox, Warner Bros. Discovery, Paramount and Roku, introduced Universal Ads, a platform to “simplify and aggregate ad buying across TV and streaming,” Ad Age’s Parker Herren reports. Herren notes that the initiative targets small and medium-sized businesses.
• DirecTV Advertising announced plans for enabling programmatic capabilities for its satellite television ad inventory, with the goal of closing the gap in ad impressions between streaming and traditional linear TV.
• Disney has created a certification program with partners Google, Yahoo and The Trade Desk to streamline real-time programmatic buying for live sports and entertainment events, Ad Age’s Garrett Sloane reports. The goal is to allow for real-time auctions for unplanned moments such as games that go into overtime.

More programmatic developments:

• “Mars Petcare is testing direct SSP buying for CTV ads” (Digiday)
• “Trends that will shape the global programmatic OOH industry” (Marketing Edge)

The stream of this week’s CES announcements also included several surrounding customer data:

• Amazon Ads will provide brands with five years of access to their customer data on prior purchases, up from 13 months, MediaPost’s Laurie Sullivan reports.
• Disney unveiled Disney Compass, a product that streamlines access to data from Disney and its identity and measurement partners, per Alyssa Boyle of AdExchanger.
• Experian announced its own third-party data marketplace that will include offerings from Attain, Circana, Dun & Bradstreet and Alliant, reports AdExchanger’s James Hercher. “Third-party data isn’t dead,” Hercher writes, “it’s just been driven underground.”

More on data:

• “Apple denies using Siri data for targeted ads or marketing profiles” (The Tech Portal)
• “Martech stack complexity fragments audience data” (MarTech)

Given how much CES has grown over the years, you’d think it would be hard to stand out among all the new computers, cellphones and eclectic items such as automated cat air purifiers. But Delta’s marketers may have found a way. In honor of its 100th anniversary, Delta went big for its presentation and took over the Sphere, the spectacular entertainment venue just a block off the famed Las Vegas Strip. Judging from photos, there was not an empty seat in the house as Delta CEO Ed Bastian highlighted the availability of the AI-powered Delta Concierge service on the Delta app, a unique loyalty program partnership with Uber and a new cloud-based seatback in-flight entertainment system. Attendees also got an update on Delta’s plans with Joby to introduce an air-taxi service.