Spectrum Reach, the ad sales division of telecom company Charter, has just unveiled a new AI platform called Spectrum Reach Architect, or Architect for short. The goal: to provide an AI assistant that delivers customized media-planning recommendations to help campaigns reach the right audiences, of course, and perform more effectively.
According to Spectrum Reach, the AI is trained on the historical performance of tens of thousands of aggregated campaigns, using first-party data from over 30 million households that rely on Spectrum—including campaigns that have run through the Spectrum TV app.
Interestingly, this seems like a play for smaller, local TV advertisers. In its press release, the company gives the example of an attorney in North Carolina who used Architect to plan an ad buy that launched just last month. He called the tech “a game-changer,” saying it showed him “the breakdown of my marketing plan and delivered a tailored proposal for my business. I could see exactly how my budget would be optimized for maximum reach and frequency.” Hey, it’s almost like this guy was media trained or something!
We joke! Sure, Spectrum Reach likely helped shape the quote—but it still gives a strong sense of the platform’s value.
Why This Matters:
Bringing AI-powered recommendations to TV ad-buying—especially for local TV and SMBs—is compelling, no? We’ve seen AI tools aimed at the SMB segment from Meta, Amazon, and Google. And we’ve seen AI planning tools for big brands (see ViantAI or Yahoo Blueprint). But we haven’t heard much about AI for local TV buying. In that regard, this feels like a smart offering for that underserved market.
It also underscores the value of having a lot of quality first-party data in TV. Spectrum Reach’s scale feeds Architect with the intelligence it needs to make meaningful recommendations based on actual historical performance. As the saying goes: he or she who have the data ultimately builds the best AI. (OK, maybe we just made that up, but still.)
Experts React:
Jason Brown, EVP at Spectrum Reach, had this to say in the company’s press release on the launch:
“With Spectrum Reach Architect, we can optimize and provide recommendations to advertisers that are applicable to their specific campaigns, whether big or small, to drive even greater campaign effectiveness with unparalleled precision.”
Our Take:
Here are a series of random, hopefully rational reactions: Everyone’s talking about “performance TV,” but we haven’t seen much in the way of AI tools that truly enable it. So this is a notable move in that way.
Spectrum Reach is also positioning Architect as a solution for “clients of all sizes,” reinforcing a broader trend we’ve seen all year: democratizing TV buying. Making TV more accessible to smaller advertisers is a major theme in 2025—and it’s likely to continue as platforms, broadcasters, and adtech players work to bring more buyers into the space.
