Uplane to work with AG1 and Kalshi to replace marketing agencies with AI

### **AI Startup Uplane Targets Marketing Agencies With AI-Powered Marketing Automation**

AI marketing startup Uplane is positioning its technology as an alternative to traditional marketing agencies, using artificial intelligence to automate advertising campaigns, create content and optimize spending across major digital platforms.

The San Francisco-based company, co-founded and led by CEO Julius Körfgen, is working with brands including AG1 and Kalshi as it develops an AI-driven platform designed to handle much of the repetitive work traditionally performed by marketing agencies.

According to Körfgen, marketing teams can spend weeks developing advertisements, building landing pages and analyzing campaign performance. Uplane aims to shorten that process by generating hundreds of advertisements and corresponding landing pages while continuously adjusting advertising budgets based on performance.

The platform can research target markets and audiences, create branded advertising assets, launch campaigns and conduct A/B testing across platforms including Meta, Google, TikTok and LinkedIn.

Rather than relying on a fixed campaign strategy, Uplane continuously analyzes results and reallocates spending toward campaigns that generate stronger performance. The company says the data generated by each campaign is also fed back into its system, allowing the platform to refine future marketing decisions.

Körfgen said marketing teams remain responsible for deciding what ultimately goes live, while Uplane handles much of the manual campaign management. He has claimed that clients using the platform have achieved an average 30% improvement in return on ad spend compared with their previous agency performance.

The startup has also reported stronger results for individual customers. In the case of wellness company Aonic, Uplane said the improvement in return on ad spend reached 60%.

Uplane's approach comes as businesses increasingly look to artificial intelligence to reduce the time and cost associated with digital advertising. Instead of using AI simply as a tool for generating individual advertisements, the company is attempting to automate the broader campaign process from research and creative development to testing and budget allocation.

Founded by Körfgen, Lukas Vollmer and Marvin Abdel-Massih in November, Uplane focuses on companies spending at least $100,000 a month on digital marketing. Rather than charging based solely on advertising expenditure, the startup operates on an annual-fee model.

The company has already attracted clients across several industries, including wellness, fintech and transportation. Its customers include Aonic, Wagetap and German railway company Deutsche Bahn.

Uplane raised $4.5 million in seed funding earlier this year in a round led by Play Ventures, with participation from Y Combinator, 20VC, Rebel Fund and Multimodal Ventures.

The company's platform allows brands to either upload existing advertising materials or generate new visuals through AI. It supports both text and video advertisements and can also be used to create and test different landing-page versions.

By connecting marketing activity with CRM and ERP data, Uplane says its system can move beyond measuring clicks and conversions to identify which campaigns are contributing to business outcomes and profitability.

Körfgen has also claimed that Uplane allowed Deutsche Bahn to complete work previously handled by a large marketing agency in significantly less time.

The company's ambitions reflect a broader shift in the advertising industry, where AI is increasingly being used not only to produce marketing content but also to make decisions about where, when and how advertising budgets should be deployed.

For Uplane, the longer-term goal is to turn marketing campaign management into an increasingly automated process, leaving human teams primarily responsible for strategic oversight and final approval.

The development could put pressure on traditional agencies to rethink how they deliver services as businesses gain access to AI systems capable of handling tasks that once required large teams of marketers, analysts and creative professionals.