By Michael Bürgi • January 5, 2026 •
Ivy Liu
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At every major tentpole event — this current one being CES — Omnicom attempts to deep dive on an issue of importance to its clients, and this year is no exception.
Digiday has learned that Omnicom is working with Google to create a new agent that empowers brands with far deeper insights into how to use search in the AI-powered era. The idea is to understand consumer intent, given that new forms of search now offer much deeper insight into what people are looking to know.
As it has in the past, Omnicom started out its efforts to reengineer its approach to search based on research from Joanna O’Connell, chief intelligence officer at Omnicom Media, that dives into the future of influence — search being just one way to influence consumer purchase habits.
“What we were trying to get at is, what influences people, and then what is a brand supposed to do about it with that new information?” explained O’Connell. “With all that new information, the kind of classic information asymmetry between sellers and, in this case, the brands and buyers (which is consumers), is gone… How do you get to machines so that the human that are using those machines (as in, generative AI), are positively influenced?”
Working off this premise, Omnicom created what it’s calling the “consumer prompt insights tool,” an agentic solution which leverages a variety of search signals that gives its clients a clearer understanding and way to use the deeper knowledge that search today can provide consumers. For example, one used to search for vacuum cleaners — today you ask, what’s the best wet vac for cleaning up sandy wet spots (you know, for the marine biologist or surfer in your family).
“That is a higher intent