Traditionally, marketers depended on designers and other creative talent to produce images and videos for tailored online advertising efforts.

In late 2024, the seven-year-old startup Hightouch introduced an AI-driven solution enabling marketing experts to generate bespoke content for brands like Domino’s, Chime, PetSmart, and Spotify without engaging brand design teams or advertising agencies.

The service has proven to be remarkably successful. Since launching its AI product 20 months ago, Hightouch has reported an increase of $70 million in annualized recurring revenue (ARR), according to TechCrunch, bringing the startup’s total to $100 million in ARR.

“Prior to GenAI, it was unfeasible for anyone lacking extensive design experience to produce consumer-grade assets,” stated Kashish Gupta, co-CEO of Hightouch. Co-CEO Tejas Manohar, a former engineering manager at Segment, a customer data platform purchased by Twilio for $3.2 billion in 2020, also leads the company.

Nevertheless, Hightouch’s methodology transcends the capabilities of typical AI models.

Hightouch asserts that many brands first tried to create advertising campaigns using general foundational models—broad AI systems that facilitate tools like chatbots but lack specific brand knowledge—only to discover that the images and videos produced did not conform to “on-brand” standards.

“Foundation models were unaware of particular consumer brands, be it colors, fonts, tone, or visuals,” Gupta explains. “The LLMs would fabricate products that didn’t exist, and you cannot conduct advertising and emails on products that aren’t real.”

To guarantee brand uniformity, Hightouch integrates directly with its clients’ pre-existing creative tools, such as the widely-used design platform Figma, image libraries, and content management systems (CMS).

By sourcing from these platforms, the system “absorbs” a company’s unique brand identity. Hightouch’s AI agents then leverage these visuals, designs, and customer information to empower marketers to autonomously create personalized advertising campaigns, eliminating the need to depend on designers or developers.

Hightouch’s AI aims to produce images and videos that appear as though crafted by professional designers, steering clear of the “inauthentic” or generic appearance frequently linked with AI.

“For instance, Domino’s will never create a pizza,” Gupta remarks. “They’ll always utilize existing images of pizza and incorporate it into an ad where the background might be generated, along with other elements.”

The company, which currently has about 380 employees, was valued at $1.2 billion in February 2025 when it secured an $80 million Series C funding round led by Sapphire Ventures.

Pictured above, left to right: Tejas Manohar, Josh Curl, and Kashish Gupta