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Foxtel's aiming to beat OzTam to market with its own trading currency – with the two set to land days apart. That could prove bumpy for media agencies. Foxtel Media boss Mark Frain, while piling pressure onto the incumbent currency provider, hasn't ruled out bringing everything back together. But only under a "very different operating model". In the meantime the pay TV firm turned streamer is going all-out to align new partners: Measurement firm Beatgrid, IPG's Magna and Wesfarmers are running tests on reach, frequency, incrementality and brand lift, while Amplified Intelligence and OMG are building a major video streaming attention and context amplification study for the Video Futures Collective.

Personalised Plates Queensland (PPQ) has overhauled its data-driven approach to marketing on top of a new platform implementation built upon Tealium, Dotdigital and Craft CRM. It's part of a wider change which has also seen the creation of a digital experience team inside the group. And they are getting wins on the board with strong conversion rates and much higher visibility over the audience thanks to much more sophisticated approach to analytics.

Searching internal and external sources and conducting research, analysing documents and data, and creating summaries and outputs from analysis performed topped the use cases in a huge company wide generative AI rollout at Deloitte for its in-house house MyAssist agent. And the consulting firm is touting significant self-reported productivity improvements for the 10,000 staff who engaged with the service.

Ill-conceived KPIs have led marketers down the murky path of less-than-informed consent. Now regulators are mobilising and it's time to ditch old-world data sets and processes, say those in the know from Qantas, Choice and ADMA. Clinging on to business as usual will prove highly risky, they warn, and tougher enforcement is coming sooner rather than later.

There's an urgency to dealing with the world's climate crisis, but can the ad industry drive actual change? At SXSW, 42North Consulting's Kiranpreet Kaur Dhillon and B Lab Australia's Andrew Davies shared why they don't believe the compulsion for claims is a good idea for brands anymore – and what they believe is the story necessary for advertisers and agencies to tell when it comes to climate.

Omnicom Media Group’s CEO Peter Horgan announced he would leave the firm next year, after tripling the business over a decade and carving out a market position around media transparency. But he says advertisers have now lost interest – and "integrity" is no longer “a halo” for OMG’s agency brands OMD and PHD. The disclosure comes as industry rumblings have media agencies returning to the opaque practices of a decade ago that triggered a global firestorm around the digital media supply chain and undisclosed incentives, rebates, strong-arm tactics and arbitrage deals with media owners on unsold advertising inventory. Horgan accepts cooling advertiser sentiment to transparent media trading has impacted the business – but scotched rumours of his exit being partly over frustration of intensifying control and intervention by US headquarters.

Qantas' brand has taken a roasting in recent years. But thanks to artificial intelligence, it's no longer serving up dry chicken. Since taking the helm from Alan Joyce, new chief Vanessa Hudson has made customer experience key to the trust rebuild – and AI is playing an increasing role. Scott Wilkinson, executive manager, digital and direct customer experience, outlined three early CX use cases during a panel discussion at SXSW this week: Ticketing; giving customer agents additional firepower; and spotting and solving problems and complaints – e.g. paltry poultry – as they emerge rather than months later.

Artificial intelligence makes for solid panel fodder at an event like SXSW. The playbook goes that creativity and insight will overcome a sea of machine-generated same, and that humans will be masters of the machines and their prompts while everybody will upskill and adapt. But then someone asks an unscripted question: What about London's creative industry being decimated? Accenture Song's global and APAC creative chiefs didn't duck the question – but reckon there's a rebalance incoming.

Accenture Song ANZ has split the remits of the customer “promise and delivery” firm under two new leads to replace former regional boss Mark Green, who has relocated to New York to be Droga5’s global CEO. Bronwyn van der Merwe steps up from her current role in the high-demand customer service unit to run Accenture Song’s marketing, commerce, design, digital products and service business while veteran Monkeys exec, Matt Michael, becomes CEO of Droga5, officially rebranded from The Monkeys on 1 December. He also has responsibility for Accenture Song’s foray into media planning and buying.