Zeta Global Taps OpenAI To Expand Athena's Marketing Capabilities
Zeta Global announced a strategic partnership with OpenAI to bring conversational intelligence and agentic actions into Athena by Zeta, the company's AI marketing agent inside the Zeta Marketing Platform.
The move aims to help marketing teams move faster, make cleaner decisions inside their workflows, and translate raw metrics into decision-ready answers without bouncing between tools.
"AI is moving from the edges of marketing to the center of how enterprises operate, and Athena embodies that shift," said David A. Steinberg, Co-Founder, Chairman, and CEO of Zeta Global. "It transforms the Zeta Marketing Platform into an intelligent operating system for growth - one that can listen, reason, and act on behalf of marketers.
"Together with OpenAI, we're making this new way of working easy to adopt and scale, so brands can move faster, spend smarter, and win the moments that matter most."
What changes inside your stack
Athena runs inside the Zeta Marketing Platform, so analysis and execution stay connected. Marketers can ask plain-language questions about audience responses, email performance, or a dip in conversion rates, and get clear summaries with next steps.
Instead of exporting data or recreating dashboards, teams get instant answers that plug directly into campaigns, experiments, and reporting cycles.
Inside the two Athena apps
Insights with Athena
- Acts as a conversational analytics assistant for audience and product questions.
- Pulls relevant data, trends, and patterns to produce answers, visualizations, and dashboards.
- Flags shifts in behavior across channels without manual database work or tool hopping.
Advisor with Athena
- Functions as an AI strategist for live campaigns, reviewing goals, performance, and history.
- Recommends adjustments to targeting, creative, and budget allocation to improve outcomes.
- In limited cases, when configured, can execute actions-such as sending revised campaigns or launching follow-ups-so teams act on insights without waiting on manual reports.
"Zeta shows how advanced AI moves beyond insight and into action," said Giancarlo 'GC' Lionetti, Chief Commercial Officer at OpenAI. "By working together, we are bringing agentic intelligence directly into everyday marketing workflows, helping enterprises move faster and act with confidence."
What it means for the customer lifecycle
- Faster feedback loops: Teams can adjust targeting, messages, and offers in near real time, tightening the gap between observation and action during conversion moments.
- More relevant engagement: Advisor can suggest actions for segments or individuals and, when enabled, auto-tune campaigns after purchase to strengthen loyalty.
- Less manual work: With reporting and planning overhead reduced, marketers can focus on strategy, creative testing, and revenue impact.
How to get value fast
- Wire clean, high-signal data into the Zeta Marketing Platform and confirm field definitions.
- Set guardrails for any auto-actions (permissions, thresholds, and approval flows).
- Start with bounded use cases: weekly performance reviews, mid-flight budget shifts, or triggered follow-ups on key behaviors.
- Track lift against a control for conversion rate, CAC, LTV, and time-to-decision.
Zeta is expanding early beta access for both Athena apps-Insights and Advisor-reflecting strong interest from enterprise teams ready to tighten cycles from analysis to action. For details on the company, visit Zeta Global.
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