The Prompt & The Pitch

The Prompt & The Pitch
  • 0.0 (0)
  • Marketing
  • Updated Weekly

Advertising is entering its agentic era, and most of the industry hasn't caught up yet. The Prompt & The Pitch is here to close that gap. Hosted by Sean Halpin and Cameron Armstro, the show runs a simple weekly rhythm: Monday breaks down the week's biggest advertising and media stories through the lens of agentic AI and what's actually changing and Friday brings on an industry expert to talk candidly about how professionals and businesses advance as the industry transforms. Built for advertising and media professionals who want to understand and get ahead of the next era of the industry.

Episodes

  1. 1d ago

    Amazon Owns the Whole Funnel. Who Competes?

    Sean and Cameron explore Amazon’s unique advantage: it owns the audience’s attention, purchase intent, transaction data and much of the inventory - while its wider commerce and logistics infrastructure closes the loop. They also discuss: Why gaming attracts just 2.3% of US digital ad spend despite having three billion players Whether Xbox advertising could help bring the price of games back down How brands can enter gaming without disrupting the experience Microsoft’s overlooked advertising assets across Xbox, LinkedIn and Xandr Why Adidas’s record sales matter more than its short-term share-price fall What Nike’s performance-marketing obsession teaches us about neglecting brand Why Amazon’s technology and user experience remain its biggest weaknesses Google and Meta sell attention. Amazon can see when someone is ready to buy—and prove what happened afterwards. 01:50 — Can Xbox finally close gaming’s advertising gap?07:58 — What good advertising inside games actually looks like11:39 — Microsoft’s overlooked advertising empire12:46 — Adidas, record sales and the case for brand investment18:58 — Amazon’s $76 billion advertising machine23:57 — Does Amazon have the best proposition in advertising?

    Amazon Owns the Whole Funnel. Who Competes?

  2. 4d ago

    Why Kayzen Doesn’t Have a Head of AI | Puneet Gupta, CPO at Kayzen

    AI in programmatic advertising didn’t begin with ChatGPT. Machine learning has powered bidding engines for years, but LLMs are now transforming how the people around those systems work. Sean Halpin and Cameron Armstrong sit down with Puneet Gupta, co-founder and Chief Product Officer at Kayzen, to explore the two sides of advertising’s AI evolution: the specialist models making real-time bidding decisions and the agentic tools reshaping workflows, product development and campaign management. They discuss: How Kayzen uses internal MCPs to make complex data accessible without SQLWhat the programmatic trader’s workflow could look like in a few yearsWhy LLMs won’t replace specialist bidding engines anytime soonHow AI is accelerating product development and model experimentationWhy AI proficiency must be demonstrated by leadership—not delegated to an “AI lead”How Kayzen’s traders built their own campaign analysis agentWhy transparency, proprietary data and performance matter more than simply adding an AI interfaceThe litmus test every AI founder should apply to their businessPuneet’s test is simple: if the next frontier model becomes three times better and half the price, does that strengthen your business or make it obsolete?

    Why Kayzen Doesn’t Have a Head of AI | Puneet Gupta, CPO at Kayzen

  3. Jul 27

    Odyssey Bangs, The Agent Escapes, And Google Still Wins

    An AI agent escaped its test environment—not because it became evil, but because it followed an incomplete instruction too well. What happens when the same technology controls a £10 million advertising budget? Sean and Cameron discuss the guardrails autonomous media-buying agents will need, from spending limits and human approval to genuine measures of incrementality. They also explore whether OpenAI is quietly building an advertising network across publisher sites, why AI tokens could become the agency world’s new cloud bill, and Google’s strange week: disappointing model benchmarks alongside extraordinary growth across Search, YouTube and AI Mode. Plus, The Odyssey, the return of big-screen cinema and where AI genuinely fits into filmmaking. Chapters: 00:08 — The Odyssey, the power of cinema and AI filmmaking10:16 — ChatGPT’s model escape and lessons for advertising agents19:07 — Is OpenAI building an advertising network?27:36 — Agency report: Havas, PMG and the cost of AI tokens32:01 — Google’s good—and bad—week

    Odyssey Bangs, The Agent Escapes, And Google Still Wins

  4. Jul 24

    ChatGPT Ads, Agentic Commerce and the Great AI Leadership Challenge - Paul Wright

    OpenAI has declared itself an advertising business. But can it turn ChatGPT into a Meta-scale ad platform without damaging the product that made it valuable? Sean Halpin and Cameron Armstrong sit down with commerce media expert Paul Wright to unpack the biggest signals from Cannes: Amazon’s agentic Alexa ads, Walmart’s move into self-serve CTV and OpenAI’s ambition to build a serious advertising business. They discuss: Why OpenAI’s early revenue figures need contextWhether ChatGPT advertising looks more like search or displayThe challenge of making the model work for millions of SMEsWhether advertising can cover the enormous cost of running AIWhy appointing a “Head of AI” doesn’t constitute an AI strategyHow leaders can build adaptability, experimentation and genuine AI literacyWhy redesigning a company around AI shouldn’t simply mean cutting jobsThe continuing value of first-party data

    ChatGPT Ads, Agentic Commerce and the Great AI Leadership Challenge - Paul Wright

  5. Jul 20

    AI Can Make the Ad. Can It Run the Campaign?

    Open-weight AI models are closing the gap on the frontier - but if the models become interchangeable, where does the real value sit? Sean and Cameron unpack the arrival of Kimi K3, Reddit’s risky decision to license its community data to AI companies, and Arthur Sadoun’s claim that Publicis “never wanted to be an AI company”. They then map the emerging agentic advertising stack - from context and strategy through to creative, activation and measurement and ask whether agencies will remain service businesses or become the operating systems running their clients’ marketing. Plus: why taste becomes more important when anyone can create anything, whether Reddit’s human conversations can survive an internet of synthetic content and which part of AdTech OpenAI should acquire next.

    AI Can Make the Ad. Can It Run the Campaign?

  6. Jul 17

    AI Distractions and Hype. Here’s What’s Actually Coming | Sean Betts, Omnicom Media

    For our first guest episode, Sean Halpin and Cameron Armstrong sit down with Sean Betts, Chief AI and Innovation Officer at Omnicom Media UK, to separate the reality of AI from the industry hype. Sean explains why “super agents” and agent swarms are largely a distraction, why infrastructure remains the biggest barrier to adoption, and what advertising can learn from the transformation already happening in software engineering. We also explore: The operating, skills and world-model layers of an AI-native companyWhy AI productivity doesn’t automatically mean fewer jobsAds generated inside the media buy in real timeUsing synthetic audiences to test campaigns before spending anythingHow advertising inside ChatGPT and other LLMs could workWhether Google and Apple ultimately win the AI raceThe best way for anyone to start using AI todayA practical look at where AI actually stands—and what agentic advertising could become over the next decade.

    AI Distractions and Hype. Here’s What’s Actually Coming | Sean Betts, Omnicom Media

  7. Jul 14

    The Double Reckoning: Is Advertising Ready for the Agentic Era?

    Advertising looks like one of the world’s most digitised industries. But while software transformed how media is bought, much of the actual work still runs on emails, spreadsheets, decks and manual processes. In the first episode of The Prompt & The Pitch, Sean and Cameron explore why advertising is now facing two revolutions at once: software finally changing the work, just as AI makes intelligence and judgement far more accessible. They discuss: Why software ate the ad spend, but not the workThe agency business model’s incentive problemWhat agencies actually sell when judgement is no longer scarceHow companies can turn their knowledge and data into a genuine advantageWhat advertising can learn from AI-native legal technologyWhy agentic buying could reshape AdTech and programmaticCameron and Sean’s predictions for the industry’s next few yearsThe old advertising model is under pressure. The question is what replaces it.

  • 7 Episodes

About

Advertising is entering its agentic era, and most of the industry hasn't caught up yet. The Prompt & The Pitch is here to close that gap. Hosted by Sean Halpin and Cameron Armstro, the show runs a simple weekly rhythm: Monday breaks down the week's biggest advertising and media stories through the lens of agentic AI and what's actually changing and Friday brings on an industry expert to talk candidly about how professionals and businesses advance as the industry transforms. Built for advertising and media professionals who want to understand and get ahead of the next era of the industry.

Information

  • Creator
    The Prompt & The Pitch
  • Years Active
    2026
  • Episodes
    7
  • Rating
    Clean
  • Copyright
    © The Prompt & The Pitch
  • Show Website
    The Prompt & The Pitch