Pencil

Pencil, founded in 2018 and acquired by The Brandtech Group in 2023, builds an AI Operating System for marketing. Its platform orchestrates multiple AI models - including those from OpenAI, Google, Adobe, Runway and Bria - into a single layer for generating text, image and video advertising content, allowing enterprise brands to create and scale campaigns without committing to a single model vendor. The company's founding team previously worked at Google, Facebook and Uber.

The Pencil Platform is designed for enterprise use. Its agentic architecture supports human-in-the-loop creative workflows, in which AI handles production while people retain oversight and accountability, alongside governance controls, SOC 2 Type II certification, full IP indemnification and a no-train policy on customer data. The stated results for customers include reductions of 50% in creative production costs and improvements of 79% in return on ad spend.

Enterprise customers named by the company include Diageo, Unilever, L'Oréal and Samsung, spanning consumer packaged goods, beauty, consumer electronics and spirits. The platform supports simultaneous scaling across 24 markets. Following the acquisition by The Brandtech Group, the stated ambition is to make AI the default in advertising while leaving creative professionals in place.