Google has entered a strategic partnership with independent agency Open Partners to co-develop the agency’s proprietary advertising platform, ACE — Automated Campaign Execution — within the Google ecosystem.
The collaboration, backed by what both parties describe as a significant co-investment, has been under development throughout 2025 and is scheduled for launch in early 2026.
Google approached the agency following early deployments of ACE across Open Partners’ client base in homebuilding, hospitality, and retail. According to the agency, campaigns using the platform delivered consistent uplifts of 20–30% in return on ad spend and conversion rates, driven by data activation, artificial intelligence, and automation.
ACE is designed to automate campaign management in full. Its capabilities include the dynamic adjustment of media weight, audiences, and targeting based on live signals such as weather conditions, first-party data, contextual inputs, and shifts in consumer demand. The system operates without manual intervention, aiming to ensure advertising performance remains optimised regardless of time, location, or market volatility.
Michael Leppan, Co-Founder of Open Partners, said: “Our mission as the Agency of Next is to think about the future so our clients are always ahead of the curve. ACE fully embodies this ethos, because when the technology didn’t exist to deliver our clients’ full potential, we created it. ACE ensures they consistently reach the right audience, with the right message, at the right time, and that’s what will deliver true growth. It has the power to fundamentally change how advertisers operate in an AI advertising landscape.”
He added: “Additionally, to have secured Google’s collaboration and investment in an agency-led project is a monumental validation of our vision and expertise. We are confident the full rollout will deliver transformative outcomes.”
Adam Hetherington, Strategic Agency Manager at Google, said the partnership was driven by inconsistencies in hyperlocal campaign activation across platforms.
“We see huge variation in the quality of hyperlocal activation across our platforms, and approached Open Partners to co-develop a tool with us to solve. The ACE platform is now nearing completion, and it’s been clear that Open Partners’ combination of highly relevant client experience twinned with their agile way of working have both been integral to the success of the project.”
The partnership reflects growing collaboration between technology platforms and independent agencies seeking to differentiate through proprietary tools. As automation and AI become central to digital advertising strategy, agencies are increasingly investing in in-house technology to retain control over data activation and performance optimisation.
The formal integration of ACE into Google’s ecosystem positions Open Partners within a small group of agencies developing platform-aligned tools, as competition intensifies around performance-driven advertising solutions. The early 2026 launch will test whether the model can scale beyond initial sector deployments.
