dentsu Partners with Index Exchange & Chalice AI to Build an AI-Enabled NextGen Programmatic Ecosystem
by on 11th Sep 2025 in News
Index Exchange Inc., one of the world’s largest independent supply-side platforms (SSPs), and Chalice AI, have announced a strategic partnership with dentsu’s Media Practice. The two companies will form a core part of dentsu’s NextGen initiative, a company-wide transformation designed to evolve its core capabilities through data, modularity, and AI.
The partnership marks a major milestone in the evolution of dentsu’s programmatic ecosystem, with Index Exchange becoming their primary SSP partner across key European markets. Index will power dentsu’s NextGen algorithmic trading model, that leverages rich, real-time audience signals available from the sell-side. This will be coupled with a set of platform-independent AI bidding agents, powered by Chalice, that offer clients transparent, customised AI models to hit their business goals.
The partnership moves dentsu’s AI decisioning power within the SSP environment, enabling the agency to take a leading position in the industry-wide adoption of sell-side signal aggregation and modelling. This emerging transformation allows buyers to apply custom algorithms to granular, high-value audience signals before a bid request is even sent. Through this partnership, dentsu’s media practice will be launching Next Gen AI – enabling faster decisioning, access to high quality curated supply paths, deeper data insights, and more sophisticated performance measurement strategies for their clients.
"When you can make decisions at the page level, you unlock a new layer of precision," said Freddie Turner, managing director, Chalice AI EMEA. "That’s the promise of this partnership – faster, smarter, more accountable media."
"As agencies lean further into AI-powered sell-side decisioning, they’re demanding smarter, more transparent supply paths, as well as greater control over how media is delivered and measured," said John Tigg, SVP, buyer development at Index Exchange. "dentsu EMEA is leading that evolution with a bold new strategy to optimise audience delivery and media performance at scale. We’re proud to play a key role in helping them bring that vision to life."
The partnership will also see dentsu tapping into Index and Chalice’s expertise in scaled innovation, custom bidding strategies, quality media, and premium audience delivery. Together, the companies aim to redefine the role of the supply-side in modern media buying, delivering on dentsu’s commitment to apply market leading AI capabilities to create competitive advantage for its clients.
"This partnership is a foundational step in building a next-generation programmatic capability that aligns with our broader NextGen transformation," said Nicholas Halas, head of product, Global Amplifi, dentsu EMEA. "Chalice’s advanced decisioning technology and Index’s scaled infrastructure give us the ability to create a more intelligent, transparent, and value-driven media supply chain for our clients."
Follow ExchangeWire