From autopilot to self-driving

You may have witnessed that two words in the hero section of our website are crossed out. Now, why would we possibly choose to do that? Let's go through: we realized that we can go broader.

Autopilot assists you in keeping some of the boring work, but you still have to be in the seat and you have to control things quite often. This is what automation generally represents, including a lot of what people mean when they talk about AI. Self-driving is a different product entirely. The car goes, you take over when you want to, and the software doesn't need a chaperone, so to speak.

Much of ad ops has been selling the first as the second for a long time.

Auto ads doesn't go the whole way

Auto ads is a product that sometimes sounds like the second, but it doesn't go the whole way. As we describe in our other articles and also across our case study, it is very important (and advantageous!) to understand the intent of your site's visitors – they are what has to guide ad layouts. Just because there is space available doesn't mean that space is suitable, and Auto ads simply cannot understand that by nature. It doesn't take in language and environmental context the way we (people) do – but the best LLMs can. Set-and-forget platforms generally can't go the whole way.

Autopilot, done properly

What we have introduced with the workbench is Autopilot, done properly. Consider: you ask, he drafts, you approve, you can undo. Kaz remembers the important points and can always access your website's structure and lkzAi numbers to gain information clearly. This is a useful tool, but it is still a tool. Let's call it a very friendly cruise control with lane assist. We aren't replacing this anyhow. It is a great feature, and it is especially useful when you want to be in control and name the exact positions or have a chat with Kaz about your numbers, making new things happen or trying things out. In fact, we consistently focus on making the workbench as comfortable an experience for publishers at any level.

What self-driving is here

Then we move to the next level: what self-driving is here, also known as the Kaz Desk. We take the part that Auto ads got right — pasting just one tag for your whole ad setup — and we take it from there. We include Google, header bidding, native ads, video, and as many placements and special formats as you need, managed through this single script integration that is very light.

You gain access to Kaz and a dedicated ad ops person. You do not need to configure the next placement or babysit anything because our ad ops team is controlling Kaz for you. We believe in Kaz's capabilities so much that we like to use Kaz on a day-to-day basis because it is actually easier for us than setting up ads on our own, and that is the real selling point. It is what brings you to the position of not even having to control the car.

Experts stay in the loop

The valuable part is that experts stay in the loop. At least in our opinion, AI is far better at implementation than ideation. Given a good direction, agents will likely outperform humans when doing things that are easily evaluated and validated in code or data, but thinking of things on a broader, abstract level is still a weaker point. Our goal is always to superpower humans and be productive in the right way. We like making things easy for ourselves and for our customers, and we have learned so far that this is the cleanest way to do it.

If you want to learn more about how your ad setup can run itself (which still sounds pretty futuristic), feel free to get in touch — a message, an email, the form, a call, whatever you wish.

P.S. If the two words sound familiar, they should. We didn't copy their cars, just the distinction. Ad ops was overdue a strikethrough :)