AIVANTA has built software that logs each introduction it makes between a brand and a creator, collects the grades those introductions receive, and rolls them into a composite score. Founder and CEO Donnovan Andrews is counting on that system to turn Authentic, the company’s brand-creator summit, into the start of relationships he expects brands to need by the hundreds.

Donnovan’s case for those partnerships starts with search. He points to Google’s most recent earnings as showing “cracks” in its search business, and to publishers’ talk of “Google Zero,” a future of no search traffic that he notes has not arrived. 

“What that means from my perspective is that the relationship that creators have with their audiences will become that much more valuable,” he says.

AIVANTA, the New York media holding company Donnovan founded in January 2026, is adding events for that market, starting with Authentic on November 18 at the People Inc. Auditorium in New York City. It is the company’s first event since acquiring FPT Media, organizer of the Brand Storytelling and Elevate conferences. It puts 150 leaders, from brand CMOs and creators to talent agencies, platforms, publishers and investors, through a single track in one room. That format, in Donnovan’s view, gives attendees “a connected view of the entire industry” in place of separate conversations.

He came to that room from the agency side, starting as a media planner at Omnicom’s OMD and later founding Performance Bridge Advertising, whose clients included four American Express divisions and Coca-Cola. He most recently served as a Global Consulting Principal for AI at Ogilvy Consulting and holds 18 AI certifications. His pitch for Authentic centers on what happens to introductions once attendees leave.

The Summit Day Opens a Year of Introductions

Going home is where, in Donnovan’s account, most people assume an event’s work ends. “Most people think that coming to these events is you show up, you try to meet people, and you’re either successful in that or not. And then you go home,” he says.

AIVANTA plans for connections year-round, starting with sponsors. “For us, it’s about understanding what our brand partners want, especially our sponsors, who they need to be talking to, what’s going to make their business successful,” Donnovan explains. It does the same with creators.

The tracking system records those introductions now, and a second phase is meant to generate them. “Phase two of that is going to allow us to be proactive in terms of being able to deliver relationships and introductions for folks over time,” Donnovan notes. The goal is that people get connected even when nothing develops on site.

What the system scores is the introduction, the step before any signed deal. For a first edition, that makes introductions the earliest point at which AIVANTA can test its claim that the summit is where brand-creator partnerships are made.

AIVANTA Runs Its Events on Software It Built

That tracking tool is one of several systems AIVANTA built in-house. The others include a CRM running on its own AI technology in place of Salesforce or monday.com, and the registration system Authentic attendees use. The tools cut costs and let the company add features and customer communication without adding headcount, according to Donnovan. “People always think that we are much larger as an organization than we actually are,” he says.

Donnovan rejects the practice at some organizations of barring staff from using AI. The same logic drove the FPT Media deal, which he describes as taking AI into a company with very little technology to deliver more yield, scale and profit margin.

Software can handle the follow-up. Getting the right people into the room is a programming decision.

One Stage Is Built to Avoid Conference Sameness

That decision starts with format. “We don’t have these multiple tracks where people are breaking off into the different rooms. Everyone is getting all the same knowledge, all the same information,” Donnovan says.

Conferences that book the same big creator names, he argues, end up with “sameness” because those creators reach the same audiences and work with brands in the same categories. Authentic’s agenda mixes brand executives from Mastercard, Oatly and eos Products with creators and the artist Shantell Martin, whose collaborators include Tiffany & Co., Puma, Kendrick Lamar and the New York City Ballet.

Mastercard’s Jay Altschuler sits on the panel about building creator programs that scale, a session Donnovan says targets how some brands think about size.

Brands Should Plan for Hundreds of Creators

“Quite often the perception with some brands is that if they’re not spending hundreds of millions of dollars, they won’t have the ability to scale a campaign,” Donnovan says. The panel’s answer is that they can with the right help. “You just have to use the right partners to get you the right creators,” he explains.

For marketers who still defend creator budgets internally, Donnovan frames the spend as preparation for tectonic shifts in media still in their early stages. “If you don’t agree with that, you are absolutely whistling past the graveyard,” he warns.

Some brands already work with 25,000 to 30,000 creators, according to Donnovan. “It is inevitable that you’re going to be working with hundreds of creators,” he argues. That means deciding now who the partners will be, which technology partners will handle deployment, and how the program will scale.

Delay carries a competitive cost in his view. “If you kick this down the road as a strategy, eventually someone is going to come in with that knowledge and probably displace you,” he says. For a budget holder, that turns today’s creator spend into early learning for a roster the company will have to run later.

Creator Programs Still Need Room to Experiment

That early learning also shapes how Donnovan thinks campaigns should be judged. “We’re so early in all of this that we still need to put a lot of dollars to play for experimentation,” he says.

He sees value in standardized measurement because it puts everyone on the same page when a campaign ends. He also wants brands to be able to work with a creator without holding the creator’s feet to the fire over page views that didn’t convert. “This is not a 25-year-old medium that has been perfected and measured to the tenth of a penny,” Donnovan notes.

His definition of success is broad. “Ultimately, you want to make sure that the brands get what they paid for and that there is some level of performance,” he explains, whether that means product sales or brand lift. Creators may want more reach or a budget for something ambitious such as travel or a stunt.

U.S. creator advertising spend is projected to reach $44 billion in 2026, which Donnovan reads as “no longer experimental.” In his account, the money is committed while the methods for judging it are still being worked out, and creators carry part of that work.

Creators Need to Pitch Within Brand Parameters

“The big thing for creators to walk away with is getting a deeper understanding of how to work with brands within the parameters that some of them have set,” Donnovan says. That starts with learning how to budget, propose and pitch.

He describes a give-and-take between building creative for a brand and protecting the audience relationship that anchors his view of the market. “You’re giving them content, but they’re giving you their time and their trust,” he says of creators’ audiences. “So you have to remain authentic.”

Creators who learn that, Donnovan argues, will be better placed to take their businesses to the next stage over the next few years.

Authentic’s Format Will Follow Its Attendees

Authentic has a multiyear plan of its own. Donnovan expects next year’s edition to run multiple days, probably with another Authentic before the one-year mark. AIVANTA also plans more events in New York and elsewhere.

The single room may not last. If attendees and topics become varied enough, a two- or three-track program would make sense, Donnovan says, once AIVANTA understands what the brand-creator market is asking for. “Our number one mission is to serve the audience,” he adds.

The summit, the tracking software and the advice share one premise: brand-creator relationships are built over time, starting while the market is still early. “Both these things can exist without each other,” Donnovan says of brands and creators. “They’re way better when they come together.”

Authentic takes place November 18 at the People Inc. Auditorium, 225 Liberty St., New York. Tickets are available at events.aivanta.io. 

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