AFR Boss unveiled its Most Innovative Companies list last week across 10 industry categories. In media and marketing the top 10 innovators and innovations were:

1. M&C Saatchi for Minnie, a AI-led machine learning tool that helps advertisers categorise, benchmark and decode every aspect of their advertising material

2. PHD Media for its "first-time mum algorithm" designed to identify first-time mothers with children aged 0-1 with "unprecedented accuracy"

3. CHE Proximity for designing NRMA Safety Hub, a preventative insurance tool that paid customers to check and fix household risks before they became more expensive claims

4. Leo Burnett for Canon Kyoyu, a camera-sharing community that allows Australians more affordable access to better photography gear

5. AKQA for predictive search and rescue operations for the New Zealand Coastguard

6. Versa for being Australia's first agency to embrace the four-day working week. Versa closes its office on a Wednesday and all staff have flexibility to work as much or little as they want

7. Dentsu Aegis Network for its "Innovation Champions" design thinking program 

8. Shootsta for traffic management and globalisation

9. King Kong for the King Kong Academy program that can take a complete rookie and turn them into a "world-class marketer" within six months

10. Sparro for Sydney Swans AI audience estimation