The biggest night in ad tech
On September 28, AdExchanger revealed the 2026 winners live at the Awards Gala in New York City, held alongside Programmatic I/O New York. PurePlay AI was named Best Industry Startup, a category that recognizes the young companies setting the standard for measurable impact across today's advertising ecosystem.
Our winning entry, Real-Time Signals. Agentic Action. Superior CTV Performance., tells the story of a CTV-first intelligence platform that connects competitive intelligence, creative intelligence and a real-time performance feedback loop into one agentic system. Brands get faster decisions, smarter spend and outcomes they can actually measure.
“This one belongs to our team and to the brands who trusted a startup with their CTV budgets. We built PurePlay because marketers deserve signals in real time and action that keeps up. AdExchanger putting a trophy on that is a big moment for us, and we're just getting started.”
Eric Steigelfest, Co-Founder & CEO, PurePlay AI
What we're building
PurePlay AI is a CTV-first intelligence platform built for enterprise CMOs and media strategists. It reads real-time competitive, creative and performance signals, then takes agentic action across the buy so every dollar works harder. Brands including Essilor, NASCAR, ShopRite and Sunglass Hut use PurePlay to move faster, smarter and with more confidence.
Congratulations as well to the Best Industry Startup honorable mentions, Taiv and Genuin, and to every finalist who made 2026 such a competitive year.