Cutting Through the Noise: How AI Is Powering the Future of Audience Data

By Mike Ford, CEO of Skydeo

Two years ago, I attended my first MediaPost event in Tahoe. I was hooked. I ended up sponsoring the next one, and eventually shifted all of our sponsorships here. Why? Because this community makes it easy to do business with friends—and make friends with the people you do business with.

In fact, I calculated that I spent 36 days last year at MediaPost events. That’s more time than I spent with my kids (about 20 days)! Clearly, this industry means a lot to me.

What We Do at Skydeo

Skydeo works with about 6,000 advertisers every month across the programmatic ecosystem. We provide the audiences that fuel growth, helping brands acquire their next customers.

Through persistence—and customer by customer—we’ve built one of the largest audience data sets in the United States:

• 30,000+ segments across auto, CPG, travel, retail, finance, and homeownership

• 3 billion+ IDs sampled, narrowed to 600 million for deep, actionable insights

• 10x more segments than most other data providers

We cut our prices, expanded selection, and focused relentlessly on return on ad spend. That approach landed us at #79 on the Inc. 5000 list last year, and we just celebrated our 10th anniversary on August 1.

AI in Action: Campaigns in Minutes

AI isn’t about hype—it’s about what works. At Skydeo, we’ve integrated AI into both our internal operations and our customer-facing products.

For example, our Skydeo Audience Marketplace (SAM) makes segment selection feel like online shopping. Need BMW intenders? Add them to your cart and you’re ready to activate across platforms like Trade Desk, Google, Yahoo, and StackAdapt.

But AI takes it further. Instead of manually building campaigns, you can simply type:

“Honda.com”

The system fetches Honda’s products, suggests the best audiences based on our insights, and builds campaign structures automatically. What used to take 10 minutes now takes one. Even junior marketers can activate high-performing campaigns without deep technical knowledge.

Building Apps with AI

AI isn’t just transforming advertising—it’s changing how we build software.

I demonstrated this live by building a “networking app” for MediaPost attendees. Think of it as a cross between LinkedIn and a dating app, designed to help people connect.

Here’s what happened:

• I fed the speaker page URL into AI.

• In 20 minutes, it broke down requirements, wrote code, and produced a working prototype.

• We iterated in real time—tweaking prompts, adjusting features, and improving the design.

The result? A functional app, created by an English major (me), without a team of developers. Imagine replacing months of back-and-forth with a designer with a working prototype in an afternoon.

That’s the power of AI.

What This Means for You

Whether you’re running campaigns or thinking about internal productivity, AI can help you move faster and smarter:

• Faster campaign builds with data-driven audiences

• More efficient workflows with AI-generated tools

• Empowerment for non-technical team members to create solutions

Closing

Skydeo wouldn’t be where we are today without our partners and customers. A special thanks to the MediaPost community for making this such a valuable gathering year after year.

If you’d like to learn more or connect with our team, reach out to:

• Kat Kennedy – Kat@skydeo.com

• Alyssa Houlihan – joined us just two months ago and already making an impact.  Alyssa@skydeo.com

Here’s to building smarter with AI, and to many more years of growth together.