In today’s Digest we cover Reddit rolling out an AI media buying tool, WPP launching Agent Hub to power agentic AI marketing, and a US judge rejecting Amazon’s bid to dismiss a price gouging lawsuit.

Reddit rolls out AI buying tool

Reddit has rolled out an AI-powered media-buying tool designed to automate core aspects of advertising on its platform, including audience targeting, bidding, and creative optimisation. The product, called Max Campaign, is positioned as a way to attract performance-focused advertisers while responding to ongoing concerns around transparency in automated advertising tools.

Integrated into Reddit Ads Manager, Max Campaigns is intended to simplify how brands plan, set up, and run campaigns. The company said the tool draws on what it considers its key differentiator: the depth of user-generated conversations across Reddit’s communities, which it refers to as “Reddit community intelligence”, to inform campaign delivery and optimisation.

WPP launches Agent Hub 

Agent Hub has been launched by WPP on its AI marketing platform, WPP Open. The launch gives clients access to agentic AI tools built on the company’s proprietary data and accumulated know-how. The platform acts as a central repository for AI agents that embed WPP’s intelligence.

It is available to clients worldwide as well as WPP’s 100,000 employees, providing ongoing access to what the company positions as verified expertise. At launch, Agent Hub includes a curated group of ‘Super Agents’ covering functions such as brand analytics, behavioural science, strategic analogy, and creative ideation.

According to Stephan Pretorius, WPP’s chief technology officer, Agent Hub is how the company  delivers excellence at scale for their clients. “This is about human brilliance, amplified by AI, enabling us to offer clients commercial models based on business outcomes, not simply time and materials,” he commented.  

Judge rejects Amazon’s bid to dismiss price gouging lawsuit

Judge Robert Lasnik has refused Amazon’s attempt to have a proposed class-action lawsuit dismissed, allowing claims that the retailer engaged in price gouging during the Covid-19 pandemic to proceed. The lawsuit accuses Amazon of failing to stop third-party sellers from charging what plaintiffs describe as unlawfully high prices for essential goods, while also inflating prices on its own products. 

Lasnik rejected Amazon’s argument that Washington state consumer protection laws were too vague to apply to pricing practices or did not cover the alleged conduct. He said it was plausible that pandemic-related shortages, public health restrictions and a surge in online shopping left consumers with "no meaningful choice but to purchase from Amazon despite the allegedly unfair prices it was charging."