Liftoff with Jeanniey Walden
Sean Black of Audience Path on Real-Time Signals, the Ray Platform, and the End of Cookie-Based Targeting
Who’s on this episode
Hosted by Jeanniey Walden, founder and host of Liftoff with Jeanniey Walden.
What you’ll learn
- Why Sean believes traditional media targeting is fundamentally broken.
- How real-time signals identify who someone is today, not yesterday.
- What the Ray platform does, and the “mirrors” it builds.
- Why owning the video player and the data changes the game.
- How Audience Path reads video frame by frame to tell AI from human content.
- Three pieces of advice for anyone in the media business.
Episode highlights
- 00:20Meet Sean Black of Audience Path
- 00:42Why marketing has been broken
- 00:56Five billion streams a month as signals
- 01:25Why companies still use old targeting
- 01:33The cost, the training, and owning your data
- 02:08Meet Ray, the real-time platform
- 02:22How Ray came to life at Dailymotion
- 02:55Deciding in the moment as people watch
- 03:24Signals into personas Ray calls “mirrors”
- 03:53Fidelity and incrementality over case studies
- 04:47The only company that owns the video player
- 05:10AI content vs real content, and the metadata challenge
- 06:20Reading video frame by frame
- 06:41Three pieces of advice for the media business
Episode summary
Recorded on a yacht in Miami, Jeanniey sits down with Sean Black, General Manager of Audience Path, for a conversation she promises will change how you think about media and targeting. Sean’s starting point is blunt: marketing has fundamentally been broken by the way people think about and create audiences. His fix is signals. Audience Path owns its video-player technology and sees over five billion streams a month, and it uses those streams to build signals that identify who someone is today, in the moment you need to reach them, rather than what they did yesterday or a month ago. Asked why so many companies still use old, traditional targeting, Sean points to cost and, more importantly, training. You can’t stand up an AI platform and expect it to perform without the right data, and what excites him is that Audience Path owns the information feeding its models, so they are trained on its own signals.
The platform is called Ray, Dailymotion’s proprietary agentic AI, which Sean says launched about six months ago and grew out of conversations, on a smaller boat than this one, about how Dailymotion could become a more audience-based company. Ray takes live signals, what videos you are watching about cars, barbecuing, the home, or having kids, and turns them into audiences Sean calls “mirrors” that brands can reach in real time. He is careful about how he talks about results: everyone promises great case studies, so instead he points to the fidelity of the signals and the incrementality, with completion rates and standard media metrics rising for clients. Where other companies say they have first-party data but hit a ceiling, he argues Audience Path keeps driving incremental performance because it is the only company that owns the video player and consumes video content itself as a signal, a shift away from static cookies.
On the flood of AI-generated content and the “sea of sameness,” Sean is pragmatic. Because Dailymotion is a video company and an SSP with a player across more than five thousand publishers, its technology has been trained to understand both AI-driven and natural content, and he argues that what the viewer is watching matters less than their interest and intent. If someone engages with an AI-created automotive spot, that is still a real signal. The harder problem, he says, is metadata, so Dailymotion’s player reads content frame by frame to generate it, helping publishers and users tell AI-made from natural content apart. He closes with three pieces of advice for anyone entering the media business: love what you do, use the technology to sharpen your efficiency rather than fear it (he believes AI makes teams smarter by prompting better thinking), and keep educating yourself as the landscape keeps changing.
Key takeaways
- 00:42 Sean argues marketing has fundamentally been broken by the way people create audiences; the fix is using the right real-time signals to identify who someone is today.
- 00:56 Audience Path owns its video-player technology and sees over five billion streams a month, turning those streams into signals rather than relying on what someone did yesterday.
- 01:33 Building agentic platforms is costly, but the harder part is training; because Audience Path owns the data feeding its models, they’re trained on its own signals.
- 02:08 Ray is Audience Path’s real-time platform, Dailymotion’s proprietary agentic AI, launched about six months ago.
- 03:24 Ray turns live signals, like watching car, barbecue, or home videos, into audiences Sean calls “mirrors” that brands can reach in real time.
- 03:53 Rather than lead with case-study results, Sean points to the fidelity of the signals and the incrementality, with completion rates and standard media metrics rising for clients.
- 04:47 Audience Path says it’s the only company that owns the video player and consumes video content itself as a signal, a shift away from static cookies.
- 05:10 On AI versus human content, Sean says interest and intent matter more than whether a spot is AI-made; engaging with an AI automotive ad is still a real signal.
- 06:20 Dailymotion’s video player reads content frame by frame to create metadata, helping publishers and users tell AI-generated from natural content apart.
- 06:41 His three tips: love what you do, use technology to sharpen your efficiency, and keep educating yourself as the landscape changes.
Questions people ask
Who is Sean Black?
Sean Black is the General Manager of Audience Path, a Dailymotion company, and a longtime ad-tech leader.
What is Audience Path?
Audience Path is a Dailymotion entity for US brands and agencies that uses real-time, AI-driven audience signals to improve targeting and media performance.
What is Ray?
Ray is Audience Path’s real-time platform, Dailymotion’s proprietary agentic AI, which turns live video signals into audiences and optimizes media in the moment. Sean Black says it launched about six months ago.
How does Audience Path create audiences?
It captures real-time signals from video streams, more than five billion a month, and uses Ray to build personas it calls “mirrors” that brands can reach live.
How is this different from cookie-based targeting?
Instead of static cookies or past behavior, Audience Path identifies people by what they are doing today, using signals from video content it owns and consumes.
How does Audience Path handle AI-generated content?
Its video player reads content frame by frame to create metadata, helping distinguish AI-made from natural content, though Sean Black says user interest and intent matter more than whether the content is AI.
Full transcript
Jeanniey Walden: I’m here on this incredible mansion yacht with one of my favorite people in the world, Sean Black. Sean is General Manager of Audience Path, and what he’s going to talk about today is going to change the way you think about media and targeting forever. Sean, welcome to Liftoff. We don’t usually hug on the show, but this one was special. You’re doing something so many brands should be doing and so many agencies should be thinking about, but nobody’s thinking about it yet. You’re using audience behavior and identities in a unique way. Tell us all about it.
Sean Black: What’s exciting is that, fundamentally, marketing has been broken. The way people think about audiences and creating audiences has been a challenge, and we own technology, we are a video-player technology. We see over five billion streams a month, and using that stream lets us create signals. That’s what we believe in, using the right signals to identify people, not what they were doing yesterday or a month ago, but what are they doing today and how you can reach them in the moment you need to.
Jeanniey Walden: We’ve got so much happening in 2026 with new technology, with AI, with new ways to engage. Why do you think so many companies are still using old, traditional ways of media targeting?
Sean Black: First of all, it costs a lot. It takes a lot to build these agentic platforms and everything the companies and agencies are trying to create. But the biggest part is the training. You can’t just create an AI platform and expect it to do what you need. You have to train it with the right data, the right information. That’s part of what we’re excited about, we actually own the information we’re feeding it, so all of our models are trained on our own data.
Jeanniey Walden: I love that, and you’re doing it in real time. You call it Ray, right?
Sean Black: Ray is our platform, yes.
Jeanniey Walden: Who came up with the idea? How did it get created?
Sean Black: It’s a village, like everything else. About this time last year we were sitting around and said, as Dailymotion, because Dailymotion powers our technology and who we are, how do we become more of an audience-based company? How do we start using better insights with our technology? It evolved through interesting conversations on a boat like this, well, not like this, it was a lot smaller. We started to figure out how to create something different, and Ray is what evolved. Ray launched about six months ago.
Jeanniey Walden: You make decisions in the moment, as people are watching content. Why is that so important?
Sean Black: Because we believe signals are a way to determine what a person is doing today. If you’re watching videos on cars, or on barbecuing, or helping in the home, or you have kids, those signals help us better understand who that person is now. By capturing those signals, Ray takes them all in and starts creating personas. We call them mirrors. It’s creating audiences we can go and reach in real time.
Jeanniey Walden: When you reach these people in real time, what kind of results are you seeing? It’s got to be substantially better.
Sean Black: Everyone’s going to talk about great results, it’s just like a case study. No one’s ever going to say it’s bad. The one thing we’re really proud of is the fidelity of those signals and the incrementality we’re seeing. When other companies say they have first-party data, their incrementality is bound, they can’t go any farther than their signals or their data. For us, we’re driving incrementality, so our completion rates and all the normal media metrics are increasing for our clients.
Jeanniey Walden: So if I’m an agency or a brand, how do I know it’s time to start using signals and to test out Ray?
Sean Black: Today. We both come from agency life, and everyone’s trying to create something. But we’re the only company that legitimately owns the tech. We own the video player. We’re the only company actually consuming video content as a signal. You’re going to see a fundamental shift of brands and agencies trying to figure out how to reach people today, based on what they’re doing today, and not using static cookies and things that are old at this point.
Jeanniey Walden: With AI creating so much content, and this sea of sameness everyone’s talking about, especially in video, how do you foresee the media landscape changing, and discerning between AI content and real content, so you can tell a brand whether people respond better to AI content?
Sean Black: Great question, and it comes back to who Dailymotion is. Dailymotion is a video company. We’re an SSP. We have a video player that sits on over five thousand publishers. Our tech has been trained to better understand AI-driven content or natural, user content. I don’t know if it necessarily matters what the end user is watching, because it’s of interest to them. If they have the intent and interest we’re looking for, I don’t care if you’re watching an AI-created spot for automotive, because it clearly is something you’re interested in. The biggest challenge is going to be the metadata, how people distinguish the difference between AI and real content. Our video player actually watches frame by frame and creates metadata from that video, so now we’re helping publishers and even users have better-identified content.
Jeanniey Walden: I love that, that’s super smart. If you give three pieces of advice to somebody just starting out in the media business about how to be most effective, what would it be?
Sean Black: You have to love this. My son is in advertising now, and you have to love what we do. If you’re getting into this industry, you have to have passion. This is what I know to do, I can’t be a plumber or an electrician. The second thing is take advantage of the technologies in a way that helps you not just learn your business but better your efficiencies. I was talking to my team about using AI, and some people feel like, am I getting dumber using it? I really believe it’s making us smarter, because it’s thoughtful enough that it starts engaging you to think. And the last is to keep constantly educating yourself, watching what’s happening. Back when we started, we could invent the world. You can’t invent the world anymore, there’s not too much to create, so it’s about consuming, being in places like this and getting content.
Jeanniey Walden: This was an amazing conversation, Sean. Thank you so much for being on the show.
Sean Black: Appreciate it. This is great.
This conversation was recorded for Liftoff with Jeanniey Walden and lightly edited for readability.
Watch the full conversation
More candid conversations with the executives shaping media, marketing, and technology.