Interactive CTV ad company BrightLine is optimizing and further fine-tuning its interactive CTV ad units with help from AI to boost relevance and ultimately effectiveness.
On Wednesday the vendor, which already powers ad formats for a host of major streamers and CTV players as clients, announced the debut of DynamicAI – its latest offering that uses an AI learning engine to optimize the performance of engageable CTV ads in real time.
DynamicAI is rolling out this fall and will first be applied to one of BrightLine’s most often used formats – the retail carousel – to dynamically swap featured products for the ideal combinations and mix based on viewer interactions and real-time signals.
For those unfamiliar, BrightLine’s retail carousel format appears as a frame overlay during the ad, allowing viewers to browse and navigate through different products featured on the carousel with their remote control.
The retail carousel has proved to be a biggie for the vendor, as the format is one of its most popular and was featured in 30% of the more than 400 interactive CTV campaigns BrightLine powered in 2024, which is representative across all streaming platforms, BrightLine President and Chief Strategy Officer Rob Aksman told StreamTV Insider.
Interaction rates on BrightLine carousel units average around 1%, according to Aksman.
And while the retail carousel is first, Wednesday’s announcement marks only the first step in a longer-term plan for BrightLine to bring AI-powered optimization to all of its interactive CTV ad formats.
How does DynamicAI work?
According to BrightLine, the DynamicAI engine “continuously re-sequences product combinations, keeping the best performing items front and center throughout the campaign.”
How does it do so?
Aksman described how within the retail carousel unit, the AI engine tests up to five product combinations and places them based on real-time viewer interactions, such as remote clicks, to identify what’s driving the most engagement. On the backend, AI utilizes data gleaned from earlier viewers and compares the results against a control group, which provides testing to continuously learn what products perform best. So the AI engine is pulling from a mix of real-time and past learnings to dynamically update products in the carousel, including viewer interaction and navigation data as well as contextual signals. Based on that, the products are updated automatically to make sure “that the most relevant, highest interaction products are prioritized for each viewer and lower performing ones are eliminated or replaced,” he explained.
In this scenario, “best performing items” are defined by a score of engagement across various metrics, he noted, but mainly meaning it highlights the products that drive the highest interaction score within the ad unit, such as clicks, remote navigations, time spent and other factors.
Down the line, new data will be incorporated to help inform DynamicAI and updates to ad units, such as time of day, genre of content, regional info, audience behavior and device type.
How would this look for an advertiser?
Aksman shared the example of a CPG shampoo brand running a DynamicAI carousel ad featuring five different versions, such as moisturizing shampoo, volumizing, anti-dandruff, color-safe and clarifying. As viewers interact with the ad unit, the AI engine analyzes which products get the most engagement or clicks.
“For example, moisturizing shampoos might get the most clicks in the winter, so the system shifts that product to the front of the carousel followed by the next most popular one,” he noted. “The AI continuously learns from interaction data points to show the most relevant shampoo variations to drive engagement with the most relevant products.”
While CPG is a natural fit for retail carousels, Aksman said it also extends to other brands that have multiple products, services or options to offer consumers. As an example, he said a theme park might want to feature a series of different rides on the product carousel. When shown to a new viewer, the rides clicked most often would automatically appear.
“The range of companies that can tap into the benefit of DynamicAI is large and we are already in talks with some of our largest partners who regularly use the BrightLine carousel CTV ad format for their campaigns,” Aksman told StreamTV Insider.
DynamicAI expanding to all BrightLine ad formats
As mentioned, BrightLine has seen notable traction as interest in its interactive, remote control clickable, ad formats continues to follow a multi-year growth trend – including a 40% increase in advertiser demand in Q1.
The company has powered interactive CTV ads for major streamers including Disney, NBCU’s Peacock, Warner Bros. Discovery’s Max and Discovery+, smart TV and CTV device makers including Samsung, Vizio, and Roku, as well as virtual MVPDs like Dish’s Sling TV, among others.
Disney last summer announced plans to introduce two custom iterations of advergaming ad formats from BrightLine, which launched exclusively on Hulu and ESPN.
As Aksman noted, the carousel is just the first format to utilize DynamicAI and in the future said “all formats from trivia to advergames will have the same capability, creating immersive, self-optimizing experiences that tailor content and calls to action to viewer engagement.”
“The goal is to make every touchpoint shoppable, engaging, and personalized,” he added.
BrightLine hasn’t officially named any brands or streamers planning to use DynamicAI yet, but asked if any customers were signed on, Aksman said yes. Advertisers across categories, including BrightLine streaming partners “have expressed interest in leveraging real time intent signals from remote clicks to optimize experiences for better performance,” he noted.
Rollouts of ad formats such as trivia, polls and games – where Aksman said “viewer engagement is inherently high”- will begin over the next few quarters with DynamicAI playing a key role to boost the units. While real-time dynamic product mix is the first implementation, in these other ad formats DynamicAI’s role will be to automatically adapt layouts, calls-to-action, and imagery based on real-time viewer data.
“This enhances both content relevance and user experience across a wider range of interactive CTV ad formats,” Aksman said.
DynamicAI will be available for all BrightLine ad formats by Q1 2026, he told StreamTV Insider.
Upping ad relevance, effectiveness, efficiency
Through its optimized interactive ad units, the company aims to address needs on multiple fronts – it’s looking to make ads more relevant and engaging for consumers, help streamers make the most of inventory with more effective ads and ultimately give advertisers more return on their investments.
At its core, Aksman said DynamicAI “was built to deliver relevance at scale” using viewer interaction data to tailor the CTV ad experience and continuously adapt what consumers are seeing to match what’s most likely to resonate with that viewer.
While audiences get more relevant ads, brands benefit from stronger engagement, improved performance and more efficient targeting at scale, which Aksman said “can provide significantly higher returns on ad spend.”
And in a world where consumers are bombarded with ads and marketing messages daily, relevance is all the more important for cutting through the noise.
“Relevance is how you maximize viewer engagement, it’s what separates a forgettable CTV ad from one that drives higher brand recall,” Aksman noted. For advertisers, he said relevance means improved performance like boosts in engagement, brand recall and more efficient media spend. Consumers, meanwhile, get a more personalized and tailored ad experience. “In a crowded content environment, people tune out anything that doesn’t speak to them directly. This AI product ensures interactive ads aren’t just created for a mass audience, they’re individually customized.”
There are also some proof points in the pudding for interactive ad formats.
A 2024 study from BrightLine in collaboration with MediaScience found that a single exposure to an interactive ad leads to more than 36% stronger unaided brand recall than a single exposure to a standard video unit.
Separately, new findings from Innovid's annual CTV Advertising Insights Report released Wednesday also show ad interactivity as driving deeper engagement. Per Innovid, CTV ads with interactive elements like product galleries, overlays and QR codes delivered an average of 71 seconds of extra viewer time compared to standard pre-roll.