Stagwell today unveiled a new agentic operating system that it has dubbed The Machine. The announcement is timed to the Consumer Electronics Show which starts tomorrow, where Stagwell will be offering demos of the system’s capabilities.  

Developed by Code And Theory, the company says it is the first to market with a fully agentic operating system in the marketing sector. 

Some Code and Theory clients have begun adopting the new OS, according to the company, although it did not specify which ones. It's client roster includes Qualcomm, Time, Stanley Black & Decker among others.

In September, Stagwell appointed Slavi Samardzija, who led the development of the Omni operating system at Omnicom, to the new role of chief data and platforms officer. Part of his remit is to implement The Machine companywide, the firm said at the time of his hiring.  

In essence, The Machine is software that uses AI agents (versus AI-driven workflows and single-purpose tools) to plan, execute and optimize marketing projects with agency and client teams setting goals and guardrails and monitoring work.  

According to the company, strategy, creative, production and media tasks are orchestrated from shared intelligence rather than “siloed handoffs” thereby “reducing friction and accelerating time to market.” 

“We’ve turned marketing operations into a unified system rather than a collection of tools to enable marketers to embrace the next phase of AI transformation,” stated Code And Theory CEO Michael Treff. 

“Most marketing AI tools ask you to rip out your infrastructure and start over,” added founder/chairman Frank Gardner. “The Machine does the opposite,” he said, resulting in a “shift from isolated tools to a unified operating system.” 

Stagwell has made significant investments in agentic-related technology over the past year. 

In November it announced that it had formed a strategic partnership with agentic AI company Gradial to combine Stagwell’s design, creative and AI expertise with Gradial's agentic execution engine. The objective: help brands connect their marketing workflows more efficiently and deliver personalized experiences across channels using AI agents. Stagwell didn’t spell out what contribution, if any, the Gradial partnership contributed to The Machine. 

Last month it unveiled NewVoices.ai, a platform that has an agent studio that allows users to create, train and manage enterprise-grade voice and chat agents via an interface that can adjust for tone, logic and workflows for sales/revenue, customer support, payments/operations and more.