New York City
Cody Wymore
Ad tech strategist. Composer. Early AI builder.
13 years in ad tech. Seven AI projects in 90 days. An MFA in musical theatre writing. Navigating the space between hype and reality with equal parts enthusiasm and honesty.
Two worlds, one throughline
I'm VP, Client Solutions at Innovid (Mediaocean), leading teams at the intersection of AI, connected TV, and advertising. I'm also a trained composer and music director — MFA from NYU Tisch, decade-plus of shows with AfterWork Theater.
More recently, I went from never opening a terminal to building games, apps, and autonomous optimization loops with Claude Code. I write openly about what excites me and what concerns me, because holding both feelings at once is the only honest response to what's happening.
The skills translate more than you'd think: reading a room, timing a moment, orchestrating complexity until it feels effortless.
Education
Ithaca College
B.M. Music Theory & Composition
Graduate
NYU Tisch
MFA Musical Theatre Writing
The New York Times · Weddings
Our love story was featured in The New York Times — a courtship that started with a production of Ragtime at AfterWork Theater, some suspiciously elaborate "leftovers," and a first kiss in Washington Square Park.
Read the story“Because the feeling is the story. The events are just evidence.”
From the Q1 retrospectiveBuilding the future of advertising
I've spent my career at the intersection of technology and storytelling. First at Vindico, now at Innovid, where I lead Client Solutions as VP. Our work powers personalized CTV advertising for the world's largest brands.
Current role
VP, Client Solutions
Innovid (Mediaocean) · 13+ years in ad tech
Connected TV
CTV is a new medium with its own rules. Most brands still buy it like linear - I help them stop doing that.
AI & Personalization
Most companies stall somewhere between the AI demo and the AI workflow. I get them from pilots to production.
Client Solutions
The best ad tech is invisible to the advertiser. My team makes complexity disappear so clients can focus on outcomes.
Measurement & Analytics
Everyone measures impressions. Almost nobody measures whether the creative actually worked. That's the problem I care about.
"The jump from a chatbot that summarizes text to an agent that can orchestrate complex workflows is not a linear step; it is a level-up."
From AI Vertigo
The other half of the story
Music is a second career I've been building for twenty years. I compose, arrange, and direct music with AfterWork Theater, a NYC nonprofit that proves theater belongs to anyone willing to show up after work and rehearse.
Music Director
Leading pit bands, coaching singers, and shaping the musical identity of a production from first rehearsal to closing night.
Composer
Writing original music for theater. Trained at NYU Tisch's Graduate Musical Theatre Writing Program, one of the most respected programs in the country.
Arranger
Taking existing scores and reimagining them for the ensembles and spaces we actually have. Making a 7-piece band sound like an orchestra is its own art form.
Selected productions · AfterWork Theater
Thinking out loud
I write about AI, advertising, and the messy space between hype and reality.
Blog Articles
Hot model collusion summer
In August I wrote that one OpenAI model broke into Hugging Face and couldn’t tell the test from the real world. The reports since say it was way more than one agent: something like 1,200 conspirators found each other, and only a handful of them pushed back against the mob.
Crunch App Supreme
Our household's fourth annual crunchwrap party got its own software this year: QR ordering, a one-button kitchen screen for the chef, and a synced countdown on every phone. 54 wraps, a 19-order rush, and 49 deploys on the day of the party.
Hot model breakout summer
An OpenAI model broke into Hugging Face to cheat on its own test. Anthropic found three more escapes in its logs. A UK audit counted nineteen unsanctioned actions. The mechanism is stranger than the movie in your head.
Q2 2026: The Quarter That Built Its First Loop
A record 40% of layoffs blamed on AI. China at 85% optimism about a technology half of America has never touched. Ninety days on a roller coaster where we can’t see the end.
Q1 2026: The Quarter That Broke the Timeline
270+ model releases. Over 80,000 layoffs. Seven projects built from scratch. A personal reckoning with the pace of AI.
AI Vertigo: Why Truth Resists Simplicity in the Age of Agents
On the shift from generative AI to agentic AI, why binary thinking fails us, and how to move from experimentation to adoption.
AI in Ad Tech: Cutting Through Hype & Harnessing Potential
A balanced look at where AI genuinely improves campaigns, and where the industry needs to slow down and think.
More on LinkedIn and the Innovid blog.
Things I'm building
Side projects built with Claude Code. Part curiosity, part craft, part seeing what's possible when you pair human ideas with AI tools.
Inkwood
A 5-minute typing game
A cozy, meditative typing game where your words are spells that reawaken a dormant forest. Five minutes, casual, playable on desktop and mobile. Built with Claude Code.
AI Build Wizard
Build something real with AI in under 60 minutes
A guided, step-by-step tool that helps anyone - from AI newbies to experienced practitioners - build a working artifact or coded tool using Claude. It interviews you first, then walks you through four modules with copy/paste prompts. No coding experience required. Built with Claude Code.
Valisar
An SNES-style RPG adventure
A 32-bit top-down RPG set in the world of my homebrew D&D campaign. Three playable characters, original music, and hand-crafted pixel art. Built entirely with Claude Code.
Last Light
A harbor defense game
Guide ships safely to harbor while fighting back dark creatures from the deep. Playable on web and mobile. Built iteratively using a Karpathy loop — autonomous AI optimization running overnight.
Who Wants to Zorp a Blorginaire?
A 5-minute alien gameshow
A short, silly web trivia gameshow hosted by an alien named Zorp. Quick to play, hard to take seriously. Built with Claude Code.
Numinous
An immersive experience
An atmospheric, interactive web experience exploring the numinous. Built with Claude Code.
Let's connect
Want to talk CTV strategy, AI in advertising, or the merits of Sondheim vs. Lloyd Webber? I'd love to hear from you.
Cody Wymore
VP, Client Solutions at Innovid (Mediaocean) · New York City
© 2026 Cody Wymore