Why AI could give advertisers their greatest gift yet

Every brief, every build, every optimisation: each step in the media buying process is an opportunity, but also a drain on hours, energy, and momentum. And as media channels grow more complex and fragmented, the strain on teams only intensifies. That’s why, in today’s age of AI, we’re asking a different kind of question: what if time wasn’t just a resource we managed, but a service we could tap into?

Welcome to the future of Time as a Service (TaaS), a philosophy powered by automation, enabled by AI, and grounded in one simple truth: marketers deserve better than busywork.

Time, at your service

While technological innovation is making waves, AI hasn’t quite yet mastered the art of time travel. But it can certainly offer the next best thing.

Much like Software as a Service (SaaS) transformed how businesses access tools, TaaS is redefining how marketers approach productivity. It’s not about working faster just to do more. It’s about freeing teams to focus on the right work; the strategic, creative, high-impact decisions that drive results and build brands.

Take @curate as an example. By using AI to streamline media curation - automating everything from partner selection to supply path optimisation - we give advertisers back hours they’d otherwise spend wading through log files and bidstream data. This isn’t just a time-saver. It’s a mindset shift.

As British soul singer Gabrielle once said, “Give me a little more time.” In media buying, we don’t just want more. We need it.

Enter the agentic era

There’s a new term buzzing through boardrooms and brainstorms alike: agentic.

In the context of advertising, agentic refers to AI-powered systems that don’t just support human decision-making; they replace entire layers of it. These are intelligent agents that autonomously manage, optimise and even personalise campaigns across channels. 

From creative tweaks to audience targeting, agentic systems minimise human intervention so that marketers can operate at pace, at scale.

This shift toward autonomy doesn’t mean marketers are replaced. Quite the opposite: it empowers them to work better, leaner, faster, smarter.

Imagine a world where:

• You never have to manually refresh performance dashboards again.
• Campaigns self-optimise based on real-time context and performance.
• Your team spends less time reacting and more time creating.
   

That’s not some far-off vision; it’s what agentic media buying enables. And when paired with the TaaS mindset, it repositions AI not as a threat to creativity, but as a champion of it.

Think back to before photography. Artists would spend weeks - sometimes months - crafting portraits. The invention of the camera didn’t kill art; it liberated artists to explore new forms of expression like impressionism and abstraction. AI is doing the same for media teams today.

Let’s reclaim our time

In a world where media inflation is rising and attention is shrinking, the real competitive edge isn’t just better data or smarter targeting. It’s time well spent.