Kantar Leverages Microsoft AI to Transform Advertising Intelligence into Actionable Insights

Global brand growth, data, insights, and analytics company Kantar has undergone a significant transformation in its approach to advertising intelligence. Historically, the firm’s role was to measure effectiveness and predict outcomes for advertisers based on decades of proprietary data. However, with the rise of generative AI, marketers increasingly need help optimizing creative content before media investment is committed. This shift prompted Kantar to rethink its strategic direction and explore new opportunities in the field.

In response to this changing landscape, Kantar expanded its LINK AI platform from ad scoring into a comprehensive AI-powered system for evaluating, optimizing, and generating better content at scale. The re-architected platform was built with Microsoft Azure capabilities, enabling it to connect intelligence, AI models, and creative workflows in a seamless manner. This integration has enabled marketers to move from insight to action in minutes, not hours.

The transformation of the LINK AI platform has had a profound impact on Kantar’s customers. With the ability to optimize each asset using generative AI, advertisers can meaningfully improve ROI and business performance. The shift from simply evaluating ads for effectiveness to now optimizing and generating new content in response to scoring has opened up broader commercial opportunities for Kantar. According to Heath Greenfield, EVP of Solutions & Platforms at Kantar, ‘The work we’ve done with Microsoft on LINK AI will help us grow our creative solutions portfolio and drive incremental revenue—not just replace or cannibalize existing revenue.’

The collaboration between Kantar and Microsoft has been instrumental in driving this transformation. The two companies co-engineered a cloud-native platform that would scale securely and reliably, built on Microsoft Azure. This platform leverages connected intelligence and AI models to power LINK AI scoring as well as the new agentic platform with recommendation, optimization, and generation capabilities. Additionally, Azure OpenAI provides image generation, video generation, and reasoning models, while Azure Kubernetes Service orchestrates creative workflows with scalable compute layers.

The re-architected LINK AI platform has delivered significant results for Kantar’s customers. Batch-scoring performance has improved by 20x, platform operating costs have been reduced by 4x, and the speed of single-video scoring has increased by 6x. This enables advertisers to test and refine creative before launch, reducing rework and improving overall business performance. LINK AI has now scored over 100,000 video advertisements in production.

The future capability that Kantar is most excited about validating is real-time, in-flight optimization. According to Ashok Kalidas, Chief AI Scientist at Kantar, ‘The ability to use continuous market feedback to tweak and personalize ads on the fly’ will be a game-changer for advertisers. With the foundation built with Microsoft, this vision is within reach. The collaboration has brought together connected intelligence, scalable execution, and governed AI—enabling Kantar to move creative optimization from a pre-launch exercise toward a real-time capability.

The transformation of the LINK AI platform marks a significant shift in Kantar’s approach to advertising intelligence. By leveraging generative AI tools for business, advertisers can now optimize content before media investment is committed. This has opened up new opportunities for Kantar to drive incremental revenue and grow its creative solutions portfolio. The collaboration with Microsoft has been instrumental in driving this transformation, and the results are already delivering measurable impact for Kantar’s customers.

The re-architected LINK AI platform uses a combination of traditional ML models and LLMs (large language models) to augment content evaluation. This approach enables advertisers to personalize ads, adapt them to different platforms, and close the loop by showing that new versions actually improve scores. The use of generative AI in this process has enabled Kantar to move from insight to action in minutes, not hours.

The collaboration between Kantar and Microsoft has also helped accelerate the adoption of LLMs as key components of LINK AI. By understanding the value of the new architectures and using LLMs while adopting a scalable approach, Microsoft’s FDE team has shortened time to value for Kantar. According to Jonathan Adler, Director, Enterprise Architect at Kantar, ‘The Microsoft FDE team brought strong technical talent, but just as importantly, they helped win people over to a new architectural approach.’

The re-architected LINK AI platform is now capable of scoring more than 100,000 video advertisements in production. This has enabled advertisers to move from insight to action in minutes, not hours. The use of generative AI tools for business has opened up new opportunities for Kantar to drive incremental revenue and grow its creative solutions portfolio.

The future capability that Kantar is most excited about validating is real-time, in-flight optimization. According to Ashok Kalidas, Chief AI Scientist at Kantar, ‘The ability to use continuous market feedback to tweak and personalize ads on the fly’ will be a game-changer for advertisers. With the foundation built with Microsoft, this vision is within reach.