Kantar has unveiled its AI Lab, a new Centre of Expertise dedicated to the development of AI technologies, products, and collaborations across its entire portfolio.

The AI Lab will bring together Kantar AI Assistant (KaiA), Text AI, LIFT ROI, LINK AI, and LINK+ digital creative testing.

KaiA is a conversational generative AI assistant that marketers can use to interrogate data more intuitively by connecting proprietary data, models, and analytical frameworks to generate insights in seconds. It is initially available for clients of Kantar’s Brand Tracking services.

Text AI is a new proprietary Gen AI-based approach to analyse thousands of open-ended survey responses at scale. Meanwhile, LIFT ROI is a unified marketing measurement platform that includes a new feature integrating LINK AI data to determine the impact of creative quality on media exposure. LINK AI Creative Insights will also be integrated within LIFT and will combine creative and media effectiveness measurement for video.

In addition, The Lab will introduce a predicted brand lift feature into LINK+ digital creative testing, a new hybrid measure that will predict an ad’s impact on brand awareness, consideration and purchase intent across digital advertising. Automated creative tagging for ads tested with LINK AI will be launched, allowing advertisers to track how their campaigns comply with channel or brand guidelines.

The Lab will also launch a hybrid market transfer feature within LINK AI, providing AI-based predictions of ad performance in secondary markets based on LINK+ results from the primary market. Concept Evaluate AI, a new tool trained on Kantar’s extensive innovation database, will be launched to give brands accurate predictions of in-market success on their concept potential.

Kantar’s newly appointed Global Chief AI Scientist, Ashok Kalidas, said: "we’re focused on the impact that AI can have in enhancing fraud prevention, the role of synthetic data, and fast and flexible data sourcing. For clients, our work is enabling everything from data connectivity to campaign optimisation, pushing the boundaries of how we understand people and help shape the brands of tomorrow."

Head of Analytics and AI for Kantar Australia, John Cucka: "Streamlining our processes, improving data quality, and maintaining cost control for our clients aren’t the sexy news businesses usually shout about. The launch of AI Lab is an opportunity to shout about the new AI tools we’ve developed that are getting into our client’s hands."

"Leveraging our world-leading frameworks, proprietary databases, and an army of data science, statistics, and technology experts, we’ve developed tools across the entire marketing landscape based on world-leading technologies. The depth and breadth of our AI-powered portfolio are like nothing else available in Australia. Whether the need is in Creative, Media, Innovation or Branding, AI-powered tools now exist from idea generation through to testing, refinement, optimisation, and forecasting," said Cucka."This is just the beginning of the AI evolution of the industry. As we can continue to train up our AI agents, speed and quality will continue to rise, and accessibility will continue to open. AI is fundamentally changing how we work, but it’s not replacing humans. It is freeing up our incredibly talented and experienced team to focus on leveraging the tools to our client’s advantage, generating better insights to ultimately drive better strategic and tactical decision-making."