Horizon Media Holdings Advances Open Ecosystem with HorizonOS Labs Cohort 2, Allowing Clients to Tap into On-Going Innovation

HorizonOS ("Open Sphere") Labs Delivers Systematic Approach to Testing and Scaling Marketing Technology Innovation; Quarterly Cohorts Ensure Clients Access Best-Fit Partners as Innovation Cycles Compress

NEW YORK, June 4, 2026 /PRNewswire/ -- As AI reshapes how marketing decisions are made, traditional agency models built around planning, buying, and measurement silos are increasingly misaligned with how the ecosystem now operates. Today, Horizon Media Holdings is introducing the second cohort of partners within HorizonOS Labs, its innovation engine designed to test, validate, and scale marketing technology in real-world conditions, offering clients a more transparent and flexible alternative to legacy agency models.

Rather than relying on closed ecosystems or investment-driven partnerships, HorizonOS Labs is built on a simple principle: innovation should be proven, not promised. The model is designed to help clients cut through a crowded vendor landscape and identify technologies that can deliver measurable business outcomes – not just theoretical capabilities. The second group of partners within HorizonOS Labs was identified based on five core pillars, AI Visibility & Agentic Experiences, Custom Bidding & Activation Intelligence, Agentic Analytics & Decision Intelligence, Creative Intelligence, and Marketing & AI Infrastructure, which reflect the critical capabilities required to enable more adaptive, intelligent, and connected marketing systems.

The 15 partner companies selected for Cohort 2 – chosen from more than 600 submissions through Horizon's 2026 Request for Information process – reflect a broader shift underway across the industry. Marketing is increasingly being divided into two critical layers: intelligence and decisioning.

On one side, intelligence is moving upstream – closer to the supply path and moments of consumer attention – providing deeper, more actionable signals. On the other, decisioning is becoming continuous and increasingly automated, with AI systems optimizing campaigns in real time across channels.

Together, these forces are collapsing the gap between insight and execution, fundamentally changing how marketing operates.

A System Built for Accountability

Launched in late 2025, HorizonOS Labs was designed to move beyond one-off experimentation and into a repeatable, scalable system for Horizon's operating system.  Each partner is evaluated through structured pilots that prioritize real business impact over theoretical promise.

Every pilot includes:

• Clearly defined success metrics tied to business outcomes
• Direct client participation to ensure real-world applicability
• Shared resource commitments across Horizon, partners, and clients
• Fixed timelines (typically 4–6 weeks) to drive rapid validation

"In a market flooded with new tools and AI claims, the real question isn't what's new—it's what actually works," said John Koenigsberg, EVP and Head of Platform Partnerships at Horizon Media. "HorizonOS Labs gives our clients a way to test and validate new capabilities quickly, so they can adopt innovation with confidence instead of risk."

From Insight to Action—In Real Time

A defining characteristic of Cohort 2 is the integration of intelligence directly into decisioning systems. Many partners operate within live campaign environments, influencing bidding, pacing, creative selection, and orchestration in real time.

This reflects a broader transition across the industry:

• From separate insight and activation workflows to unified decision systems
• From assistive AI tools to autonomous, agentic processes
• From retrospective measurement to continuous optimization

"AI is forcing a reset in what clients should expect from their agency partners," said Bob Lord, President of Horizon Media Holdings and CEO of Horizon Global. "The companies that will win are those that can connect data, technology, and human insight into systems that actually drive growth. That requires openness, transparency, and a willingness to move beyond legacy models."

From 600 Submissions to 15 Partners

Horizon's 2026 RFI process expanded its inaugural effort, with selections placing greater emphasis on interoperability, API integration, and emerging standards such as Model Context Protocol (MCP). The goal: identify partners that can operate as part of a connected system, rather than as standalone tools. The selected companies align with HorizonOS Labs' core framework, reflecting a shift toward more integrated marketing technologies across intelligence, activation, creative, and infrastructure functions.

The Cohort 2 partners include:

• Anova.ai – AI analytics platform that diagnoses campaign performance and surfaces decision-ready insights in minutes instead of days.
• Attain – Provides permissioned purchase data from 14M+ real consumers to power targeting and real-time campaign optimization.
• Chalice AI – Embeds business outcomes directly into supply-side bidding logic.
• Cognitiv – Extends prompt-based decisioning into real-time bidstream environments.
• Dstillery – Predictive audience modeling across all activation surfaces, enhanced by agent-to-agent integration with measurement.
• FreeWheel – The leading global technology platform in streaming advertising, purpose-built for the agentic ecosystem.
• Gigi – Autonomous campaign orchestration layer operating live above DSPs.
• Google Meridian MMM – Modern marketing mix modeling integrating real experimental data.
• Haus – Causal marketing measurement and optimization platform.
• HiveScience – A first-of-its kind psychological intelligence platform, allowing brands to match marketing and media to why customers make purchase decisions.
• Nyne – Creates explainable audiences designed for AI planning agents.
• Profound – Profound is the marketing platform for the AI era, scaling Agents that put brands in control of how they appear across AI search.
• Shopsense AI – Embeds highly relevant products into content to drive commerce engagement at the moment of inspiration.
• Sundogs Creative – Creator-specific scoring models built for how creator content actually performs.
• xpln.ai – Scores creative and media effectiveness based on attention-fit with the environment it runs in.

Building on Cohort 1

Cohort 2 builds on the success of HorizonOS Labs' inaugural group, where multiple capabilities have already transitioned from pilot programs into active use across client campaigns.

These include:

• Predictive audience models improving prospecting and targeting
• Creative scoring tools accelerating campaign development
• AI-powered concepting tools enabling faster iteration
• Measurement solutions automating complex attribution workflows

Several Cohort 1 partners are now embedded within Horizon's operating model, with clients actively participating in testing and scaling new capabilities. 

Looking Ahead

Horizon plans to run two additional cohorts in 2026, maintaining a steady pace of innovation while ensuring each partner is rigorously evaluated.

As AI continues to reshape the marketing landscape, HorizonOS Labs represents a shift toward a more open, accountable, and outcome-driven approach—one designed to give clients greater control over how technology is selected, tested, and deployed.

About Horizon Media Holdings 
Horizon Media Holdings is the privately-held parent company of Horizon Media, the largest U.S. media agency and the largest independent globally, with additional portfolio companies including – Horizon Next (full-service marketing); Horizon Commerce (commerce and digital experiences); Horizon Business (consulting, media and creative); One Horizon (full-service advertising); HS&E (sports and experiential); and Blue Hour Studios (influencer agency). Horizon Media Holdings has a 50/50 partnership with Havas Media Network in the performance-driven agency network, Horizon Global. Horizon Holdings drives enterprise-level innovation, fosters collaboration across its portfolio, and explores new growth opportunities and technology solutions to help its clients navigate the shifting marketing challenges of today and tomorrow.

SOURCE Horizon Media