Эксперты обсудили риски потери профессионализма и перспективы внедрения ИИ в медиапланировании

The audience poll that opened TVNewsCheck’s Working Lunch Webinar, “AI in Media Planning, Buying and Selling” on Aug. 6 told a story of its own: 60% of attendees described themselves as excited about artificial intelligence, 21% said they were afraid of it and the remaining 19% were indifferent. For the five panelists assembled by moderator Joe Cerone, founder of Cerone Advisory Group, that last number was the most surprising. “I am surprised that excitement is that high,” Cerone said. “I’m glad to see that because I love AI.” But the indifference figure drew sharper reactions. Jennifer Hungerbuhler, EVP, head of local video and audio investment at Dentsu Media U.S., said she would have expected more respondents to land in either the excitement or fear camps. “I am surprised by indifferent because of what AI brings to the table and how much better it can improve things,” she said. Raj Khare, founder, chairman and managing director of SureWaves, took a longer view on the 21% fear figure. “I hope that it comes to single digit soon, because in the future there is no option but for all of us to embrace the technology that’s evolving,” he said. Christopher Martinez, VP, advanced advertising at Hearst Television, offered a more textured read. The indifference, he suggested, may reflect a wariness earned over decades of watching media technology promise more than it delivered. “Is this really going to be the thing that actually changes the foundational pieces of our business?” he said. Automation As The Baseline Whatever their initial reaction, the panelists aligned quickly on one point: The most immediate and measurable impact of AI has been the automation of routine, labor-intensive work. Nicole Madtes, senior director, national sales at The E.W. Scripps Company, said the clearest gain for her team has been speed. “Being able to automate some of those manual tasks so our people can be more focused and more engaged and being able to interact with clients and talk to each other like we used to — that’s really been a differentiator for our sales team to give them that time back,” she said. Hungerbuhler described a similar shift on the buy side at Dentsu. “The automation of the media workflows is really helping remove the manual, repetitive work across our entire organization, and it’s allowing our teams to operate with better speed, consistency,” she said. “That ultimately is freeing us up to focus on strategy, client value, relationships, business growth.” Martinez put a finer point on it. He said he recently received a project that would have required eight weeks to complete two years ago. The current expectation was four or five days. “That’s simply because you can,” he said. On the planning side, Hungerbuhler described AI’s role at Dentsu as expansive: audience discovery through large consumer data sets and behavioral signals, channel and investment recommendations, scenario planning and versioning, report generation and brief development. On the buy side, the technology is enabling algorithmic forecasting, optimized media schedules and faster revisions across large market footprints. “What would take days can now happen in hours,” she said. Still, she was direct about the limits of autonomous execution. “Human oversight and governance are critical. It’s required,” Hungerbuhler said. “You could go in and say, ‘Build me a video plan against this particular target audience, prioritize efficient reach, account for political displacement risk, and maximize store traffic in these 40 markets.’ It will literally build you a plan. But it is imperative that a human being is looking at that.” AI As Magnifying Glass That human-in-the-loop imperative surfaced repeatedly, and Martinez offered the session’s most memorable framing. “AI acts as the tool in that sense, where given to a high-performing employee, a tool like this will allow them to perform faster, better, more accurately,” he said. “But to folks that might be more akin to someone that wants to cut a corner here and there, you’re going to get the bad results. It acts as putting a magnifying glass or putting that product under a microscope.” Evan Rutchik, Viamedia president and chief strategy officer, pointed to a related risk: the temptation to let AI do the thinking entirely. “You get a document. You don’t want to read the whole thing. You drop it in AI, and then AI gives feedback. And before you know it, it’s just two AI models talking to each other, giving feedback, and that becomes a policy,” he said. Hungerbuhler offered a clean reframe: “It’s not us humans versus AI. It’s AI plus humans. That’s the combination.” The Addressable Frontier One of the webinar’s more technically substantive exchanges centered on the partnership between Viamedia and Hearst Television to deliver local linear addressable advertising through cable operators, using a technology platform called Parrot. Rutchik described the initiative as part of Viamedia’s broader effort to build what it calls a local-first omnichannel operating system, with AI accelerating both product development and accessibility for agency buyers. The inventory, he said, carries a brand safety assurance that most connected TV supply cannot match. “You know exactly what it is, and you have access to it in a whole different way,” he said. “I would consider this super premium.” Martinez noted that managing audience accounting at scale — reconciling addressable and non-addressable household counts on a spot-by-spot basis — will require significant AI infrastructure. “The amount of math and modeling that’s going to need to happen quickly and on the fly for each and every spot that happens will be powered by AI,” he said. Graham Media, SureWaves And The Yield Problem Khare described how SureWaves has worked with Graham Media Group to connect the disparate systems of broadcast traffic and sales into a more automated, AI-driven whole, producing efficiency gains at the operational level and a sharper focus on revenue optimization. “A station has maybe 500 to 800 orders running at the same point of time, and they are all contending for the inventory,” Khare said. “When a human does it, that human is trying to optimize for one problem at a time. But the broadcaster’s revenue would actually look better only if you see that, out of all these 800 competing orders, where do you assign inventory so that the broadcaster gets the maximum value?” Khare drew a direct line to dynamic pricing practices in other industries. “The airlines industry perfected the art of dynamic pricing a long time ago,” he said. “Working with Graham, we have that whole technology in place where pricing decisions can be made more intelligently and yield itself will improve the bottom lines.” The Cognitive Surrender Question In the webinar’s final exchange, the panel addressed one of the more sobering implications of widespread AI adoption: the risk that dependence on the technology erodes the expertise and judgment that differentiate media professionals. Martinez was measured but direct. “If you don’t exercise the muscle that is your brain, you will begin to fail at pretty rudimentary tasks,” he said. “Subject matter expertise is what differentiates one company from another, one partner from another. We need to continue to teach the skills that make us experts at what we do.” Rutchik said the risk is structural, not just individual. A salesperson who relies entirely on AI to generate client recommendations, he argued, surrenders the consultative authority that defines their value in the room. “They’re not the thought leader or the strategic consultative approach that we strive for,” he said. Cerone closed on a note that captured the session’s throughline. “All of these tools are just that — tools,” he said. “Combined with your expertise, I think the outcome is unlimited.” Watch the full webinar here.