The CPG Guys – Amazon unBoxed 2025 Recap with Skai’s Jeff Cohen

Podcast: The CPG Guys
Hosts: Peter V.S. Bond & Sri Rajagopalan
Guest: Jeff Cohen, Chief Business Development Officer at Skai
Release Date: November 13, 2025
Theme: Deep-dive analysis and discussion of major announcements and industry implications from Amazon Unboxed 2025, with a focus on Amazon Ads’ AI-led transformation of commerce media.

Episode Overview

The CPG Guys deliver a comprehensive recap of the 2025 Amazon Unboxed conference from Nashville, joined by Jeff Cohen of Skai. The conversation centers on Amazon Ads’ major announcements, focusing on AI agentic tools, campaign unification, creative production, and democratization of advanced retail media capabilities. The episode balances a technical dive into new features with industry context, humor, and the practical perspectives of CPG marketers, agencies, and tech leaders.

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Amazon’s Unprecedented Scale

• 90% U.S. Household Reach ([05:50])
  • Amazon announced its platforms now reach 90% of U.S. households across on-site and off-site media, setting a new benchmark for digital advertising scale.
  • “That does make them and put them in a league of their own... In terms of reach is number one.” (Sri, [05:56])
  • Incorporation of streaming platforms (e.g., Netflix) further expands the Amazon ecosystem.

2. Campaign Unification: Command Hub ([06:42]–[09:30])

• Single Platform for Sponsored Ads and DSP
  • The new Command Hub unifies campaign management across Amazon’s ad products, eliminating the need to juggle multiple interfaces.
  • “Now you don’t have to log out of one and log into the other to run a full funnel campaign.” (Peter, [07:06])
• Benefits:
  • Full-funnel planning and execution
  • Reduced operational silos, single permissions set
  • Real-time insights and global scalability for multi-market CPGs
• Industry Impact: Encourages holistic expertise among agency teams that previously specialized by platform.

3. AI-Powered Creative Agent ([10:01]–[12:49])

• Overview: AI-driven creative development platform—“Creative Agent”—automates creative briefs and content tailored to Amazon’s audience and retail data.
  • “It’s actually generating the creative brief that you’re then using to go generate the creative. And so it’s kind of adding an extra step from what we maybe saw last year.” (Jeff, [10:53])
• Big Industry Shift:
  • LLMs (large language models) now inform creative briefs, streamlining collaboration and enabling cleaner, faster creative cycles.
  • “When an LLM informs the actual creative brief, you’re going to get tighter, cleaner, significantly faster creative briefs, which is a big freaking deal and I hope the industry recognizes that.” (Sri, [11:31])

4. Streaming TV Optimization: Project Complete TV ([12:57]–[15:02])

• “This is a unified, again, AI-driven platform that’s helping brands and marketers manage and optimize their streaming TV buy across multiple publishers.” (Jeff, [12:57])
• Cross-Publisher Optimization:
  • Real-time management of streaming and linear TV buys
  • Upload and protect private deal terms while accessing unified optimization tools
  • Ideal for larger advertisers investing heavily in streaming

5. The Role of AI vs. Human Judgment ([15:02]–[21:20])

• Debating AI’s Influence:
  • AI provides optimized campaign recommendations based on delivery, reach, and efficiency, removing human bias.
  • “You have to take the emotion out of it... When you take the mathematics into it... you can make business decisions.” (Jeff, [20:04])
• Reality Check for Marketers:
  • While humans provide brand context and messaging nuance, AI democratizes access to optimization and reduces duplication/wasted spend.
  • “If a brand manager continues to try to play whack-a-molecule in the age of influencers to try and control the brand message, it’s a losing battle.” (Peter, [19:26])

6. Ads Agent: Generative AI for Targeting & Measurement ([21:48]–[26:45])

• Democratization of Advanced Tools:
  • AI-driven tool automates complex audience discovery and measurement, removing the bottleneck of SQL expertise.
  • “It makes SQL query development of audiences accessible to anyone who can speak English.” (Peter, [22:56])
• Benefits for Agencies and Brands:
  • Time-to-insight reduced
  • Improved targeting precision
  • Non-technical marketers unlock the power of Amazon Marketing Cloud insights

7. Sponsored Ads Evolution and Portfolio Storytelling ([26:45]–[33:05])

• Key Innovations:
  1. Sponsored Products Video: Long-form video ads within Sponsored Products—especially impactful for beauty, pet, toys, and demo-driven categories
  2. Sponsored Brands Collection: Manual curation of up to 10 related products in one ad unit—AI further customizes display by shopper context.
  3. Prompts: Conversational AI that serves product info in real time within ads (Rufus integration)
  4. Reserve Share of Voice: Fixed price, guaranteed keyword placement
• “It drives deeper engagement through rich video first and conversational experiences... expands creative control over product storytelling.” (Peter, [32:27])

8. Self-Serve Streaming TV Deal Workflow: Project Deal Builder ([33:08]–[35:41])

• New for Streaming TV:
  • Self-service negotiation and activation of private marketplace/programmatic guaranteed streaming deals.
  • Aimed at accelerating workflows and reducing friction in dealmaking.
• Still Beta:
  • Most tools roll out through 2026.

9. Unified Reporting & Performance Plus ([36:12]–[40:04])

• Consolidated Reporting:
  • Campaign performance metrics from DSP and Sponsored Ads now unified into one dashboard/API.
• Performance Plus:
  • Customizable, AI-optimized campaign goal setting
  • "Insights Cards" provide additional transparency
• Industry Gamechanger:
  • Six-year lookback window enables robust new-to-brand and long-term trend analysis.
  • “You can now take six years of history, build modeling that’s far more accurate.” (Sri, [37:45])

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

“This is the year that Amazon ads got agentic at its core. Unboxed 2025 showcased Amazon ads full transition to an AI-first agentic advertising ecosystem.”
– Peter ([40:04])

“LMMs now inform creative briefs... a big freaking deal and I hope the industry recognizes that.”
– Sri ([11:31])

“It makes SQL query development of audiences accessible to anyone who can speak English. That’s the beauty of what AI has given us.”
– Peter ([22:56] and [26:29])

“You have to take the emotion out of it...When you take the mathematics...you can make business decisions.”
– Jeff ([20:04])

“The industry generally geared in the direction of saying this is all long overdue…But to me, the single biggest takeaway for me is how Paul Kotis opened the event…90% household reach, full funnel advertising platform. Guys, how many full funnel advertising platforms exist in America?”
– Sri ([44:32]–[45:55])

Timestamps for Key Segments

• [05:50] – Amazon’s 90% household reach and Command Hub announcement
• [06:42] – Unified campaign management details
• [10:01–12:49] – Creative Agent AI-powered creative development
• [12:57–15:02] – Project Complete TV overview
• [15:02–21:20] – AI vs. human in campaign management
• [21:48–26:45] – Ads Agent, democratization of data/targeting
• [26:45–33:05] – Sponsored Ads evolution (video, collections, prompts, reserve SOV)
• [33:08–35:41] – Project Deal Builder (self-serve streaming deals)
• [36:12–40:04] – Unified Reporting & Performance Plus
• [40:04–41:09] – Summary: Amazon Ads’ agentic AI ecosystem
• [44:32–45:55] – Industry sentiment & lasting implications

Closing Takeaways

• Amazon Ads signals a decisive shift to AI-powered, agentic, and unified media buying—industry-wide, these are long-awaited but transformative updates.
• The democratization of creative, data, and targeting means smaller brands and agencies can finally play at the level of category leaders.
• Human creativity and brand insight remain vital, but AI now powers optimization, measurement, and execution.
• The CPG/retail media ecosystem will accelerate toward full-funnel, data-driven marketing models—expect rapid industry adoption and adaptation through 2026.

For listeners:
If you want to dive deeper, check the show notes for links to Jeff Cohen’s LinkedIn and Skai, and stay tuned for follow-up episodes featuring Dollar General and Amazon’s Wayne Purboo.

Tone throughout: Open, collegial, and full of friendly banter—grounded in hard industry truths and practical advice.