Zeta Global Enhances AI Capabilities with OpenAI Partnership, Driving Stock Gains

Zeta Global Holdings Corp. (NYSE:ZETA) experienced a notable uptick in its stock price on Tuesday, catalyzed by the announcement of a strategic deepening of its relationship with OpenAI. The company revealed enhancements to its enterprise marketing AI system, Athena by Zeta, which is designed to leverage OpenAI's powerful conversational intelligence to simplify complicated marketing operations for enterprise teams. The expanded collaboration was unveiled at the 2026 Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas, where Zeta emphasized the increasing demand from brands for intelligent AI-powered tools that convert user queries into strategic marketing actions effectively. Athena’s improved agentic applications can tailor responses and recommendations precisely to each user’s marketing objectives and operating style, thereby facilitating real-time insight generation across complex campaign elements and data workflows. Zeta launched two key agentic applications, Insights and Advisor, currently in beta testing with select early access users. These applications are integral to Athena’s evolving suite, functioning to provide marketers with prompt access to market trends, audience segmentation opportunities, and comprehensive dashboards featuring actionable data. David A. Steinberg, co-founder, chairman, and CEO of Zeta Global, stated that this partnership represents a transformative step in how brands will employ artificial intelligence to drive growth. The collaborative effort aims to integrate agentic intelligence into the daily operational workflows of marketing teams, providing automated assistance that reduces manual labor and enhances decision-making efficiency. Giancarlo ‘GC’ Lionetti, chief commercial officer at OpenAI, remarked on the significance of this alliance in embedding AI within routine marketing processes, highlighting the potential for agentic intelligence to revolutionize everyday marketing functions. Specifically, the Insights app within Athena allows marketers to access instantaneous insights regarding trends, opportunities within target audiences, and detailed dashboards. Meanwhile, the Advisor app offers continuous campaign monitoring, capable of providing actionable recommendations and even automating steps aimed at achieving key business objectives such as increased revenue and improved customer retention. Among the early adopters engaged in Athena’s beta testing is TKO Group Holdings, Inc. (NYSE:TKO), which manages well-known brands like UFC and WWE. The company reported that Athena markedly accelerates insight generation and analysis, significantly reducing the time required to perform complex data tasks. Deborah Cook, vice president of data intelligence at TKO, noted that Athena transforms hours of manual work into seconds through simple user prompts, underscoring the efficiency gains realized. Fueled by enthusiastic early reception and strong interest from leading brands and agencies, Zeta plans to make Athena broadly available to its entire customer base by the end of the first quarter of 2026, aiming to cement its position in the AI-powered marketing landscape. Concurrently with the announcement, Zeta Global’s stock saw a rise in value, climbing approximately 4.8% to $22.71 per share as reported by Benzinga Pro. This upward movement reflects investor confidence in the company’s technological innovation and strategic direction. This partnership underscores Zeta Global’s commitment to advancing marketing technology platforms through AI integration, with the goal of enhancing marketer efficiency and expanding actionable insights to better meet evolving enterprise demands. The deployment of agentic AI in Athena demonstrates an application-focused approach that emphasizes scalable, intelligent automation tailored to complex marketing environments.