• by Ray Schultz , Columnist, Yesterday

Small businesses may not have known they needed a tool for running an email campaign without a marketing department. But one is here.  

Follow Inc, which describes itself, a vertically integrated digital advertising company, has launched a platform called followOS-email, the first feature of its followOS, an autonomous AI advertising system for small and medium-sized firms.  

The goal is to create emails that “look like the business hired a studio,” says Dean K. Ladell, chief executive officer of Follow Inc. 

According to followOS, the user only has to describe the business and how it communicates, pull in the list and followOS-email will provide the rest: automated customer flows, a consistent brand voice, product-aware content and analytics. Of course, human monitoring is needed. 

The company, which opened its beta for the new platform today, says it is ahead of its published schedule. Access is now being offered on an invitation-only basis.  

Another service, an AI search product for SMBs, will follow in  the fourth quarter of 2026, and other products are on the way. 

“We said we would build the platform in sequence and put real product in front of real businesses as each piece was ready,” Ladell says. “This is the first piece, and it is early.”  

Ladell adds, “Email is where a small business already has a relationship with its customers."