Adtech vet Brian O'Kelley's startup is pivoting to AI agents and rebranding alongside a new name

Adtech seasoned Brian O'Kelley, formerly described as the "master of the difficult pivot," is pushing the reset clasp again.

O'Kelley and his cofounder, Anne Coghlan, exclusively told CMO Insider that they are renaming their business from Scope3 to Apostra as they aim to create the startup a chief in agentic AI advertising.

They depict Apostra as a phase that connects advertisers' AI agents alongside AI agents representing media sellers, so that marketers don't have to build distinct integrations alongside possibly thousands of publishers, platforms, and another media providers.

O'Kelley told CMO Insider that promotion has been constrained by a fragmented media infrastructure, manual processes, and a programmatic promotion landscape organized about real-time bidding but not optimized for the most extremely appreciated ad placements.

"You can't buy item that's not a rectangle alongside a cookie," O'Kelley said.

Apostra is designed to let AI agents grip the activity of negotiating and managing ad campaigns throughout assorted publishers, including online placements, linear TV, and in-store audio, and to nexus brands alongside creators and clippers. The advertiser delegate makes the media owner's delegate conscious of the marketer's goals, during the media owner's delegate can bring onward particulars concerning the publisher's spectators and possible ad opportunities.

Apostra uses AdCP, a protocol created final twelvemonth by a consortium of adtech companies, including Scope3, that provides a average tongue for agents to interact. Apostra stated this makes it easier for marketers to location ads in channels specified as "walled garden" social platforms, podcasts, or out-of-home advertising, which are traditionally harder to attain through programmatic ad buying.

Unlike traditional programmatic advertising, this doesn't affect application bidding on idiosyncratic ad impressions in genuine time. Instead, the agents can automate parts of the slower procedure of discovering, negotiating, approving, and executing media deals.

The business says it's operating alongside 40 media partners and has built AdCP adapters for important ad platforms, including Google, Meta, Amazon, Reddit, and ChatGPT Ads.

Apostra stated it is already operating seven-figure campaigns through the system. O'Kelley stated an unnamed important brand began alongside a $1 myriad US run in April, afterward expanded the test into multiple another markets and channels.

While it may audio akin an ad network, Apostra stated it functions additional akin a neutral gateway. It doesn't accusation transaction fees or a percent of media expend akin another adtech platforms, but volition alternatively market add-on "intelligence capabilities" specified as run recommendation evaluation, negotiation support, catalog integration, and prosperity handling.

Apostra says that by using its technology, marketers could detect media they wouldn't alternatively admission through traditional revenue channels, and publishers could acquire admission to additional advertiser petition and decrease the expenses of marketing ad space.

The procedure isn't necessarily completely autonomous. Publishers can motionless necessitate individual endorsement for campaigns, during brands can keep authority complete things akin how the imaginative looks and the broader strategy. O'Kelley gave the example of a media partner whose AI delegate posts projected ads to a Slack conduit for a individual employee to review.

'Master of the difficult pivot'

The initiate of Apostra marks another twist in O'Kelley's lengthy adtech career.

O'Kelley was credited alongside assisting to invent the ad toggle at the adtech startup Right Media, which sold to Yahoo shortly following he remaining the company. O'Kelley was fired from his chief innovation function there following telling the Right Media commission not to obtain the deal.

O'Kelley, sometimes referred to in the commerce media as the "godfather of adtech," went on to initiate the adtech business AppNexus, which sold to AT&T for a reported $1.6 milliard in 2018.

Scope3 has a complex founding story.

In 2019, O'Kelley cofounded a business called CMDTY, which afterward changed its name to Waybridge and operated a supply-chain platform that tracked the movement of raw materials.

He began Scope3 as a flank project, offering a assistance that let advertisers, agencies, and publishers measure the carbon effect of their digital advertising. Waybridge returned several of its $30 myriad Series B backing to its investors, who in rotate reinvested $20 myriad from a kernel circular in Scope3.

Scope3 had raised $60 myriad in total, O'Kelley said.

He told CMO Insider that he had been preparedness to develop the business beyond carbon tracking since as far rear as 2022. The turning item was 2025, as companies began scaling rear their sustainability programs, he said.

He added that, until then, the business had been "doubling" income all year.

The business decided to put all of its concentration into the Apostra project "when it became apparent the sustainability endeavor wasn't going to double," O'Kelley said.

Scope3 launched its agentic media phase in March 2025. The agent-to-agent tool was designed to execute media transactions and base out inefficiencies in the programmatic ad purchasing space. Scope3 helped initiate AdCP in October.

Joseph Hirsch, CEO of the adtech business Swivel, dubbed O'Kelley the "master of the difficult pivot" final twelvemonth during describing O'Kelley's reimagining of the programmatic ad landscape as a scheme dominated by agents.

Others in the industry have been additional crucial of O'Kelley's serial reinvention. In covering Scope3's divestment this twelvemonth of Adloox, an ad verification startup it had acquired a brace of years previously, trade publish AdtechRadar stated Scope3 continued "to change its scheme as it searches for a durable growth story."

O'Kelley stated the initiate of Apostra is the company's "burn the boats" moment. The business had two rounds of layoffs complete the former twelvemonth and has reduced its caput figure from complete 100 staffers to concerning 40 people.

"It's fair really difficult to create prosperity in programmatic whenever your forthcoming imagination is to slay programmatic," O'Kelley said.

The jury's motionless out on how quickly marketers volition clasp agentic advertising, or whether it volition accomplish the measure its proponents envision. Procurement processes at ample brands frequently lag new trends. Many ad purchasing decisions are built on the power of old-fashioned, individual relationships and dealmaking — hence the longevity of events akin the annual US TV upfronts.

Apostra cofounder Anne Coghlan stated adopting agentic ad purchasing volition necessitate organizational changes for several marketers. She stated several ample companies are already experimenting alongside using thousands of inner AI agents throughout assorted departments, but haven't yet figured out how to nexus them to media buying. Many of Apostra's first campaigns have run through brands' agencies, allowing marketers to test agentic ad purchasing without having to overhaul their inner processes.

"We're not expecting you to throw everything out the window," O'Kelley said.

O'Kelley stated that individual relationships and accomplishment volition continually matter in advertising, but agentic AI can create many aspects of the ad-buying procedure additional efficient.

"The logic we called this business Apostra is since we were joking concerning apostrophes, which obtain out unnecessary alphabet and words," O'Kelley said. "You go from 'cannot' to 'can't' and you endure nothing."

O'Kelley stated the business expects to search additional backing between now and the center of next year.