Foundation this week launched Compass, an agentic AI device embedded inside its promoting platform that converts marketing campaign briefs into absolutely structured, ready-to-activate omnichannel media plans – a functionality the Chicago-based firm says no different unbiased demand-side platform presently provides.
The announcement, dated April 2, 2026, positions Compass as the primary launch in a broader agentic AI structure newly constructed into the Foundation platform, one designed to attach each main advert channel, workflow perform, and monetary system inside a single atmosphere.
What Compass does
Based on the press launch, Compass takes inputs that media groups already produce – briefs, emails, analysis experiences, viewers information, and efficiency insights – and synthesises them into client-ready technique paperwork and structured media plans. The system covers programmatic, publisher-direct, paid search, and paid social promoting. As soon as the technique is authorised, groups can use Compass to assemble campaigns prepared for fast activation, with out switching platforms or rebuilding work from scratch.
The time-saving figures cited by Foundation are notable. Based on the announcement, beta testing confirmed that duties which usually take an hour had been accomplished in 5 minutes – a 90% discount. Guide effort throughout the planning course of dropped by not less than 15%. Foundation describes these as outcomes from businesses which have been testing Compass forward of at present’s public launch.
How the device works technically is value inspecting. Compass is constructed on proprietary massive language mannequin brokers, engineered particularly across the workflows, processes, and choice logic outlined by Foundation’s in-house media consultants. The system isn’t a generic AI layer; it was educated on the precise sequence of steps that skilled media strategists observe. Based on the press launch, Compass features a complete analysis suite that assessments for, displays, and corrects bias, demographic sensitivity, and suggestion integrity – a design alternative that displays the rising scrutiny on automated promoting choices.
Customers can add paperwork for Compass to analyse and synthesise into a whole technique. From there, outputs could be customised by way of prompts, extra uploads, or structured inputs. The rationale behind every suggestion is surfaced to the consumer, permitting groups to interrogate the logic relatively than merely settle for outputs. Pure-language directions information Compass in defining channels, construction, and line-item element in a media plan, both from the authorised technique or from an exterior method. Completed deliverables export to Phrase and PowerPoint for stakeholder presentation.
The brief-to-activation loop
One of many extra technically important facets of Compass is what Foundation describes as a “closed information loop.” Technique and activation are linked inside the identical platform, which suggests marketing campaign briefs, media plans, and dwell campaigns share the identical information atmosphere. Based on the press launch, this structure permits groups to measure targets in opposition to outcomes rapidly and exactly, relatively than reassembling information from disconnected methods after the very fact.
Foundation has positioned its platform as a unified command heart for businesses and types for a while. In January 2026, the corporate announced an integration with Mediaocean connecting Foundation’s activation platform with Mediaocean’s enterprise methods – Prisma, Innovid, and Protected – to automate the complete marketing campaign lifecycle from planning by way of monetary reconciliation. Compass provides a layer upstream of that workflow: relatively than automating what occurs after a short turns into a plan, it automates the method of turning the temporary into the plan within the first place.
Based on the press launch, Compass is poised for additional growth into viewers insights, third-party activation, and cross-channel optimisation. The present launch covers planning and marketing campaign creation. Future improvement will lengthen the agentic system deeper into the marketing campaign lifecycle.
Company responses
Two businesses spoke to their experiences with Compass in beta testing.
Tim Slater, digital media director at SMZ, stated within the press launch: “Foundation Compass closes the educational hole when SMZ is exploring new verticals, media channels, or marketing campaign targets. It permits us to confidently lengthen our media experience into unfamiliar territory, serving to us transfer sooner and tackle extra alternatives as a result of we’re ranging from a deeply data-driven basis.”
Slater’s feedback level to a selected sensible use case: businesses getting into classes they haven’t deliberate for earlier than. The velocity and data-grounding that Compass supplies reduces the preparation barrier when increasing into unfamiliar verticals.
Kayla Coe, director of digital media and technique at Advert+genuity, described the size of the change within the press launch: “With Compass because the beginning basis of marketing campaign constructing, what used to take days or even weeks of labor can now be completed in minutes. It permits our crew to create fully-formed omnichannel technique in a fraction of the time with high-quality perception.” Coe added that Compass is “unlocking capabilities and supercharging our experience to drive efficiency for our purchasers.”
Shawn Riegsecker, CEO of Foundation, framed the launch when it comes to an industry-wide structural downside within the press launch. “Media groups are buried in technique meeting earlier than a single marketing campaign launches – synthesizing briefs, constructing frameworks, and producing client-ready shows,” Riegsecker stated. “For the primary time, a DSP can take a marketing campaign temporary and generate a whole, customizable omnichannel media plan – prepared for a consumer – with out weeks of guide meeting.” He additionally famous that Compass “is constructed otherwise, embedded instantly within the planning course of to maintain technique and activation linked in a closed loop from temporary to final result.”
Context: agentic AI and the DSP market
Compass arrives throughout a interval of intense exercise round agentic AI in programmatic promoting. The query of whether or not autonomous AI methods can deal with advanced, multi-step promoting workflows – and what occurs to conventional DSP fashions if they will – has grow to be a central debate within the {industry}.
PPC Land has tracked this shift throughout a number of bulletins. In January 2026, agentic AI infrastructure dominated the advertising industry’s opening week, with platforms shifting past testing to deploy autonomous marketing campaign methods. PubMatic launched its AgenticOS in early January 2026, concentrating on agent-led planning and activation throughout programmatic stock. LiveRamp introduced agentic orchestration on October 1, 2025, giving autonomous brokers ruled entry to identification, segmentation, and measurement instruments. IAB Tech Lab printed an Agentic RTB Framework in November 2025 to standardise how AI brokers work together with programmatic infrastructure – an indication that the {industry} recognises the necessity for governance earlier than autonomous shopping for turns into mainstream.
What distinguishes Compass from many of those bulletins is its deal with the planning section relatively than the execution section. Most agentic promoting instruments introduced in 2025 and early 2026 deal with marketing campaign optimisation, bidding, or activation – the downstream finish of the method. Compass targets the upstream downside: the numerous guide labour that occurs earlier than a single impression is bought.
A Mediaocean survey published in January 2026 discovered that platform fragmentation was the biggest concern for 56% of entrepreneurs, and that solely 10% of organisations described their promoting know-how stacks as absolutely unified. The identical survey famous that the complexity of cross-channel measurement and optimisation affected 49% of entrepreneurs. These figures describe exactly the atmosphere Compass is designed for: fragmented planning processes that devour important time earlier than any marketing campaign reaches the market.
Yahoo DSP’s Giovanni Gardelli identified agentic AI as a threat to traditional DSP differentiation in evaluation shared after CES 2025, arguing that autonomous methods may get rid of consumer interface as a aggressive benefit and pressure platforms to compete on infrastructure or buyer acquisition as a substitute. Foundation’s method – embedding agentic planning instantly into its current platform relatively than launching a standalone device – is according to the infrastructure-first response that a number of DSPs have pursued.
The broader aggressive context issues right here. Microsoft shut down its Make investments DSP (previously Xandr) in February 2026, citing incompatibility between conventional DSP fashions and visions for conversational, agentic promoting futures. That call eliminated one of many extra clear unbiased platforms from the market. Towards that backdrop, Foundation’s funding in agentic planning capabilities represents an try to deepen its place as a full-stack platform for businesses and types relatively than compete as a pure execution layer.
What Compass delivers and what it doesn’t
Foundation’s press launch lists the particular outputs Compass supplies: viewers, media channel, timing, and price range suggestions aligned with marketing campaign aims; accelerated marketing campaign launch timelines; streamlined conversion of briefs into structured plans; on the spot client-ready shows; and elevated crew capability. These are concrete operational enhancements, not summary AI guarantees.
What the launch doesn’t embody is cross-platform activation past the Foundation ecosystem. Compass generates plans inside Foundation, not throughout competing DSPs or unbiased planning instruments. Companies that function throughout a number of shopping for platforms would nonetheless want to maneuver technique paperwork manually into different methods – although the Phrase and PowerPoint export performance addresses the consumer presentation layer. Foundation says future improvement will develop into viewers insights, third-party activation, and cross-channel optimisation, however these capabilities are usually not but obtainable.
The analysis suite for bias and demographic sensitivity is value noting. Automated suggestion methods in promoting carry actual dangers of encoding historic biases into forward-looking technique. Foundation’s choice to construct a monitoring and correction layer into Compass – relatively than deal with it as a later-stage concern – displays a extra thought of method to deployment than many early agentic AI bulletins have demonstrated. Whether or not that analysis suite performs as described in manufacturing circumstances will grow to be clearer as extra businesses undertake the device.
Trade implications
For the advertising and marketing neighborhood, Compass issues primarily as a check case for whether or not agentic planning instruments can deal with the strategic ambiguity that precedes marketing campaign execution. Transient-to-plan workflows are usually not easy textual content transformations. They require synthesising viewers insights, channel logic, price range constraints, and consumer aims into suggestions that maintain as much as skilled scrutiny. That Foundation educated Compass on the workflows of its personal media consultants, relatively than on generic language mannequin capabilities, suggests consciousness of how a lot area information that course of requires.
On the identical time, the 90% time discount determine deserves scrutiny in apply. Beta testing figures usually mirror best-case circumstances. Companies dealing with high-complexity campaigns, uncommon verticals, or multi-market briefs could discover that Compass’s suggestions require extra refinement than the headline quantity implies. The power to direct Compass by way of prompts, extra uploads, and structured constraints suggests Foundation has constructed iteration into the product relatively than treating the primary output as ultimate – a sensible acknowledgment that AI planning instruments perform finest as beginning factors relatively than completed deliverables.
The announcement that Compass will develop into viewers insights and cross-channel optimisation suggests Foundation views at present’s launch as section considered one of a broader architectural shift, not a single product launch.
Timeline
- October 1, 2025 – LiveRamp introduces agentic orchestration capabilities for advertising and marketing automation, giving autonomous AI brokers entry to identification, segmentation, and measurement instruments
- November 12, 2025 – IAB Tech Lab publishes the Agentic RTB Framework specification for standardised AI agent deployment in programmatic environments
- January 5, 2026 – PubMatic launches AgenticOS with dwell campaigns operating throughout WPP Media, Butler/Until, and MiQ
- January 6, 2026 – Foundation and Mediaocean announce integration partnership automating the media marketing campaign lifecycle from planning by way of monetary reconciliation
- January 2026 – Mediaocean survey finds 56% of entrepreneurs cite platform fragmentation as their high concern; solely 10% describe their advert tech stacks as absolutely unified
- January 2026 – Agentic AI infrastructure dominates the promoting {industry}’s opening week as platforms transfer from testing to dwell deployment
- April 2, 2026 – Foundation launches Compass, an agentic AI device for omnichannel media planning and marketing campaign creation constructed natively into the Foundation platform
Abstract
Who: Foundation, headquartered in Chicago, introduced Compass. Company customers Tim Slater of SMZ and Kayla Coe of Advert+genuity participated in beta testing and supplied statements. Shawn Riegsecker is CEO of Foundation.
What: Compass is an agentic AI answer embedded within the Foundation platform that converts marketing campaign briefs into absolutely structured omnichannel media plans, spanning programmatic, direct, paid search, and paid social promoting. Beta testing confirmed a 90% discount in job time – from one hour to five minutes – and not less than 15% discount in guide effort. Deliverables export to Phrase and PowerPoint.
When: Introduced on April 2, 2026.
The place: Compass operates throughout the Foundation platform at foundation.com. Foundation relies in Chicago. The device is accessible to businesses and types utilizing the Foundation working system.
Why: Media planning is time-intensive and fragmented, with groups spending hours or days synthesising briefs, constructing frameworks, and producing consumer shows earlier than a single marketing campaign launches. Compass makes an attempt to compress that course of into minutes whereas sustaining a closed information loop between technique and activation, enabling sooner measurement of targets in opposition to outcomes.
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