Carat Expands AI-Powered Media Capabilities with Vurvey Partnership

Dentsu’s Carat and Vurvey Labs has announced a partnership focused on equipping Carat teams with Agentic AI tools that can work in tandem with the network’s dentsu.Connect to identify richer consumer insights and cultural relevance across media plans for clients. This news comes on the heels of Carat and Vurvey Labs completing a successful pilot that leveraged an integration with Vurvey Labs' 'AI Powered by People' platform to supercharge Carat’s insight-driven planning capabilities, which aligns with and further supports the agency’s commitment to Designing for People and unlocking people-based insights to clients.

As part of this partnership, Carat teams through dentsu.Connect (dentsu’s proprietary integrated platform - powered by data, technology and AI capabilities), will be able to tap into Vurvey’s People Model and Agentic tools to enhance existing creative and strategic outputs and synthesise data across social platforms, the wider web, client data and more. This uncovers insights around consumer segments and supports strategic decision-making. Key aspects of the partnership include:

• AI-Enhanced Audience Insights: Carat has evolved media planning to be audience driven and unified across verticals. This partnership allows teams to build custom audiences in dentsu.Connect and connect to a wealth of contextual, cultural data and insights from Vurvey that unlocks the deepest understanding of culture ties to audiences. Teams can interact directly with AI-generated audience profiles created by dentsu.Connect and Vurvey data. The capability enables rapid understanding of individual consumers and segments, rooted in real people data to understand their behaviours and interests to glean better insights into how brands can cut through and drive resonance, ultimately bringing Carat’s clients closer to culture.
  
• Pioneering Inter-Agency & Client AI Teams: dentsu.Connect is leveraging cross-functional agentic AI solutions that help create and understand audiences from client 1st-party data and its leading consumer data in collaboration with Vurvey’s 18 Billion facet combinations on scaled behaviours and context to unlock the most accurate cultural insights to help drive growth.

“This partnership with Carat and dentsu is a landmark moment, showcasing how AI can truly be powered by people,” said Heather Bollinger, CRO and head of global partnerships at Vurvey Labs. “Our People Model answers the WHY behind the data to help teams make more confident decisions throughout the entire Marketing, Media and Advertising process. Together, we are empowering Carat’s teams with people-powered AI tools to unlock new levels of insight and efficiency, that will deliver the most innovative strategy, relevant messaging and meaningful creative possible .”

The industry-leading partnership builds on a successful five-month proof of concept trial between the two companies, demonstrating a powerful synergy between Vurvey's people-centric AI approach and Carat’s strategic focus on designing for people and the reinvention of modern media planning.

"This partnership represents a pivotal moment in how we innovate at Carat. By integrating our dentsu.Connect platform and data with Vurvey’s Agentic tools and our ‘Designing for People’ ethos, we're not just evolving; we're co-creating the next era of media planning," said Michael Liu, EVP, head of innovation at Carat. "Carat is pioneering a future where our highly skilled teams are focused on unlocking unprecedented growth for our clients and operating with greater speed, insight, and strategic precision, all while staying deeply connected to human insight in order to ultimately create the best media experiences.”

Vurvey Labs and dentsu are committed to leading the charge in developing AI solutions that are not only powerful but also transparent, ethical, and fundamentally designed to empower people. Through the partnership, Carat furthers its integrated AI and data offerings for clients, building on a legacy of innovative media planning work, including The Attention Economy. dentsu is currently planning wider release of the integration across its agency brands and markets.