Measurement can tell you how your ad performed. Knowing why–and what to do next–is where the real competitive edge lives. That’s exactly what iSpot SAGE was built to deliver: faster, deeper answers to the questions that actually move brands forward.
Sean Muller, CEO and Founder of iSpot, and Miles Drayton, Executive Global Director of Marketing Intelligence at General Motors, recently sat down with AdAge to unveil our new agentic AI platform, iSpot SAGE, and the massive shift in how brands evaluate video ad performance.
Developed over the course of two years with input from some of the world’s most sophisticated advertisers like General Motors and Airbnb, iSpot SAGE moves beyond the surface-level reporting and dashboards of the past.
Actual Intelligence: Data You Can Bet Your Budget On
The most important “aha moment” for early testers, like GM, was the realization that not all AI is created equal. While generalist models scrape the open web, iSpot SAGE for Creative is grounded in our proprietary, measurement-grade data. That’s 92 million survey responses capturing exactly how real people react to your ads and your competitors’.
By deconstructing ads frame-by-frame, iSpot SAGE identifies the specific creative elements that drive impact, then ties those findings to trusted, real-world signals like Ace Score, purchase intent, and attention that top brands have relied on for years.
Why Trusted Data Matters: The “Labrador” Test
During their conversation, Miles Drayton was direct about the current state of AI in marketing. He noted that many AI tools act like “Labradors”: they are eager to please and often return generic, sunny feedback that tells marketers exactly what they want to hear.
For a global powerhouse like GM, “good vibes” don’t sell cars. Miles emphasized that iSpot SAGE is different because its agentic AI is grounded in 16 years of proprietary data, not generic, unverified internet information. It provides a fair—sometimes tough—assessment of creative. This intelligence allows GM to identify the friction points in a campaign before they bet their entire budget on it.
iSpot SAGE in Action with General Motors
Sean and Miles demonstrated iSpot SAGE’s power by analyzing Chevy’s 2025 “Memory Lane” holiday ad—a cinematic spot featuring an older couple in a 1987 Suburban. Miles Drayton shared that GM uses a proprietary framework for creative effectiveness, focusing on engagement, objective delivery, and distinctiveness.
How iSpot SAGE Deconstructed the Creative for GM:
- The “Why” Behind the Score: While traditional metrics might have just shown a high score, iSpot SAGE’s Creative Insights Analyst showcased that specific themes—like “nostalgia,” “family orientation,” and the “heritage of the vehicle”—were the primary drivers of emotional resonance for this ad.
- Identifying Barriers: iSpot SAGE flagged that while the emotional connection was off the charts, the 60-second length led to slight dips in second-by-second attention. For a brand, this insight is the difference between blindly renewing a buy and strategically editing a 30-second cut-down that preserves the “heart” of the ad.
- Predictive Validation: Miles noted that iSpot SAGE’s output matched their expensive, weeks-long manual pre-testing. “It picks up a lot of the same themes… which gives us a good amount of faith in the predictability of the platform,” he explained.
Competitive Intelligence: A Critical Lens
During the walkthrough, Sean and Miles showed how the iSpot SAGE Creative Analyst Agent can quickly run direct, in-depth comparisons against rival ads–with the ability to compare multiple brands at once.
Miles noted that iSpot SAGE allows GM to landscape the market and understand what drives differentiation for their brand versus others. For example, iSpot SAGE analyzed ads from Ford, RAM, and Toyota to reveal their “winning formulas”—highlighting that while RAM might double down on humor, Chevy wins on authenticity and emotional connection.
But the real standout moment came when iSpot SAGE identified competitive whitespaces. By mapping out the creative themes from competitor ads, iSpot SAGE recommended specific areas where GM could own the conversation. If competitors are all leaning into “heavy product features” or “price-driven humor,” SAGE points toward the untapped potential of “service-based trust” or “nostalgic storytelling.” This level of strategic clarity enables marketers to start outmaneuvering them by claiming the high-impact creative territory they haven’t tapped into.
Moving Upstream: Concepting and Briefing
Perhaps the most exciting part of the walkthrough was seeing iSpot SAGE used for Creative Planning. Instead of just measuring an ad after it airs, GM used the platform during its alpha phase to vet early-stage concepts and sponsorship opportunities.
By feeding the AI platform a written concept—like a Silverado driving on a beach—the Creative Planning Agent can generate data-backed briefs and script outlines. In the example showcased during the event, iSpot SAGE didn’t just score the concept; it provided actionable recommendations to improve key KPIs. To increase Likeability, iSpot SAGE suggested weaving in more “family orientation” elements rather than focusing solely on the surfing activity. It also cautioned that a “surfing” theme could be polarizing or unrelatable to a broad audience, advising the team to anchor the story in the truck’s capabilities to maintain broad appeal.
For GM, this is a game-changer. It allows them to align their creative vision with historical performance data from the jump, ensuring the final product is engineered to hit brand equity goals from day one.
How Every Brand Can Benefit
The launch of iSpot Sage for Creative is just Phase 1. By automating the analysis of video ad DNA, creative teams can stop guessing and start scaling what’s proven to work. Whether it’s discovering that a specific background track boosts purchase intent across demographics or generating a data-backed brief that aligns every stakeholder on a winning strategy, this platform turns gut feelings into repeatable winning formulas.
Ultimately, the demonstrations from iSpot and GM signals the end of the manual deep dive. By leveraging iSpot Sage’s specialized agents, marketers can spend less time hunting for insights in dashboards and more time executing on the data-backed strategies that drive business impact.
Watch the full launch event here:
Ready to see how iSpot SAGE can transform your creative strategy?