Full-Time

Art Director

Updated on 8/21/2026

Kargo

Kargo

1,001-5,000 employees

Cross-channel media activation platform for advertising

Compensation Overview

$95k - $105k/yr

+ Annual discretionary bonus

New York, NY, USA

Hybrid

Four days on-site per week required.

Category
Art, Graphics & Animation (2)
,
Required Skills
Adobe InDesign
Adobe Creative Suite
Adobe Photoshop
Adobe After Effects
Figma
Social Media
Animation
Adobe Illustrator
Asana
PowerPoint/Keynote/Slides

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Requirements
  • At least 6 years of design experience at a media company, advertising agency, in-house brand, or comparable creative environment.
  • A portfolio demonstrating mastery of typography, layout, photography, illustration, and composition, including strong motion and animation work.
  • Expert command of Adobe Creative Suite, including Photoshop, Illustrator, InDesign, and After Effects, as well as Figma.
  • Fluency in Google Suite, PowerPoint, and Asana for day-to-day production and collaboration.
  • Ability to concept and execute across branding systems, presentations, event environments, social, and video.
  • Strong project management skills, including juggling multiple workstreams, setting priorities, and communicating status proactively.
  • Ability to maintain high design quality, apply informed design judgment, and collaborate effectively when priorities or deadlines change.
Responsibilities
  • Design bespoke presentation templates, one-pagers, and pitch assets for sales and marketing collateral.
  • Lead end-to-end creative execution for flagship events such as Cannes, NewFronts, and CES, from concept through on-site execution.
  • Produce motion, animation, and short-form video assets for LinkedIn, industry channels, and internal communications.
  • Codify and evolve the brand system by updating brand guidelines, templates, and asset libraries.
  • Establish a scalable creative operations process with clear intake, prioritization, and milestone communication for incoming requests.
  • Translate business requests from sales, events, and marketing partners into creative direction and coach non-designers on design quality.
  • Manage a high volume of concurrent requests and proactively flag risks and timelines.
Desired Qualifications
  • Experience designing for live events, experiential activations, or large-format environments, including drone shows, booth design, or signage.
  • Background in advertising technology, media, or business-to-business brands selling to marketers and agencies.

Kargo is a media activation platform for digital advertising across mobile, CTV, social, and e-commerce. It connects advertisers to DSPs to launch and manage campaigns, with a Create Once, Run Everywhere approach that reuses a single creative across formats. It generates revenue from exclusive full-funnel ad solutions for advertisers and helps publishers maximize revenue per impression through targeted, creative experiences. Its goal is to help brands reach audiences with consistent messaging, maximize engagement and ad spend ROI, while delivering premium supply and creative excellence.

Company Size

1,001-5,000

Company Stage

Early VC

Total Funding

$6.7M

Headquarters

New York City, New York

Founded

1999

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Simplify Jobs

Simplify's Take

What believers are saying

  • Kargo's May 2026 ChatGPT rollout is already live with multiple advertisers.
  • AWS's three-year agreement expands Kargo's AI infrastructure for Bedrock, SageMaker, and RTB Fabric.
  • The March 2026 Google antitrust complaint keeps publisher-ad-server pressure alive.

What critics are saying

  • Google's April 2026 dismissal motion targets Kargo's antitrust claims as time-barred.
  • OpenAI controls ChatGPT inventory, pricing, and policy, making Kargo dependent on one gatekeeper.
  • If Project KERA stalls, Kargo becomes a commoditized middleman between publishers and platforms.

What makes Kargo unique

  • Kargo's March 2026 Project KERA turns briefs into cross-channel media plans.
  • Its May 2026 ChatGPT integration sells AI-native ads inside OpenAI's commercial ecosystem.
  • Backpack Media's April 2026 deal pairs Kargo creative formats with first-party education data.

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Benefits

Flexible PTO + 10 Sick days a year

Tuition Reimbursement

Monthly Wellness Benefit

Daily complimentary lunch when working at the Kargo office

Growth & Insights and Company News

Headcount

6 month growth

15%

1 year growth

15%

2 year growth

15%
Hemito Media Pvt Ltd
Aug 20th, 2026
Kargo unveils festive advertising solutions for India to maximise brand impact and consumer engagement.

Kargo unveils festive advertising solutions for India to maximise brand impact and consumer engagement. As India enters its peak festive season, brands are preparing to connect with consumers during one of the most high-intent shopping periods of the year. Kargo, a global leader in breakthrough advertising solutions, is bringing together its full suite of capabilities to help brands drive impact across the entire consumer journey, from awareness to consideration and ultimately to store visits and purchase. "The festive season in India is where brand decisions are made at scale, and advertisers need more than just reach to win. At Kargo, we are bringing together creativity, premium media and commerce-driven intelligence to help brands show up meaningfully in these high-intent moments and translate attention into real business outcomes." said Nabajit Nath, Sales Director, Kargo India. With a strong foundation in creative excellence and precision targeting, Kargo is expanding the spotlight this festive season to highlight a broader set of capabilities that enable measurable business outcomes both online and offline. Exclusive Innovations Across OEMs, OTT and Premium Publishers Kargo continues to differentiate itself through exclusive ad innovations built directly with leading OEMs, OTT platforms and premium publishers across India and globally. These integrations power high-impact ad experiences across Mobile Display and CTV Video environments that are not available through standard programmatic pipes. By working directly with supply partners, Kargo enables brands to deliver immersive storytelling formats that capture attention and drive deeper engagement during a highly competitive festive window. Dynamic Product Ads and DCO Capabilities To meet the surge in shopping intent, Kargo is enabling brands to activate Dynamic Product Ads using real-time product feeds combined with rich media formats. This allows advertisers to deliver personalised and visually engaging creatives tailored to individual audiences. In addition, Kargo's Dynamic Creative Optimisation capabilities adapt messaging dynamically based on multiple live triggers, ensuring that creatives remain relevant as consumer preferences evolve throughout the festive period. Contextual Targeting Powered by IBM Watson In a privacy-first environment, Kargo's contextual suite powered by IBM Watson allows brands to reach audiences based on the content they are consuming rather than relying on cookies or user-level identifiers. This approach ensures that campaigns remain both effective and compliant, while aligning messaging with relevant moments of content consumption across premium environments. Driving Footfall with Measurable Outcomes Beyond digital engagement, Kargo is helping brands translate media investment into real-world impact. Through rich media map integrations combined with Lifesight measurement, Kargo enables advertisers to drive store visits and attribute footfall with accuracy. This capability is particularly critical during India's festive season, where offline retail continues to play a central role in consumer purchasing behaviour. A Full-Funnel Approach for the Festive Moment By bringing together creative innovation, contextual intelligence, commerce integrations and offline measurement, Kargo is positioned to help brands maximise performance during one of the most important retail periods of the year. As competition intensifies and consumer expectations rise, Kargo's integrated approach ensures that brands are not only seen, but remembered and engaged. With a proven track record of delivering high-impact campaigns across markets, Kargo continues to push the boundaries of digital advertising, helping brands turn festive momentum into measurable growth. Disclaimer: Information mentioned here has not been verified or endorsed by Agency Reporter and is in accordance with the press release shared by the company or their appointed representatives.

TheTechGossip
Aug 12th, 2026
Kargo expands ai-powered advertising capabilities through three-year AWS agreement.

Kargo expands ai-powered advertising capabilities through three-year AWS agreement. Read Time: 2 Minute, 5 Second Kargo, a technology company focused on premium digital advertising, has announced a three-year Enterprise Discount Program agreement with Amazon Web Services (AWS) to support the expansion of its AI-powered advertising platform. The agreement is part of Kargo's Creative Science strategy, which combines creative experiences, data, predictive modeling and artificial intelligence to connect brand storytelling with measurable performance. Kargo said the expanded AWS infrastructure will support real-time decisioning, unified data orchestration and enterprise-grade AI deployment across premium media environments, including connected TV (CTV), live sports, mobile and commerce-focused formats. "At Kargo, we believe the future of marketing lies in the combination of art and science," said Harry Kargman, Founder and CEO of Kargo. "Creative Science is about pairing unforgettable creative with intelligent data and AI to deliver measurable impact." Enabling real-time intelligence across screens. Under the agreement, Kargo is expanding its use of AWS AI and data services to support several capabilities within its Creative Science roadmap. These include sub-second decisioning for environments such as live sports and contextual CTV, where rapid optimization can influence advertising and commerce outcomes. Kargo is also developing unified data orchestration across screens, bringing together video, audio, text and other signals into an intelligence layer that can inform campaign activation and optimization. The company's infrastructure is designed to support enterprise AI deployment while balancing performance, scalability, governance, cost efficiency and brand safety. Kargo said its architecture supports multiple AI workloads, including recommendation systems, ranking models and large language models. Each workload can be independently optimized for speed, throughput and cost. The company is also expanding its use of AWS Bedrock to provide governed access to foundation models across production environments, supporting real-time inference, experimentation and faster feature development. Expanding AI and advertising capabilities. Alongside the Enterprise Discount Program, Kargo and AWS have entered into a Strategic Framework Agreement supporting Kargo's use of AWS generative AI technologies, including Amazon Bedrock and SageMaker AI. These technologies will support use cases such as AI-assisted creative generation, dynamic campaign optimization and workflow automation. Kargo is also using AWS RTB Fabric to strengthen connections across data, identity and measurement workflows. Together, the agreements position AWS as an important infrastructure and engineering partner for Kargo as the company expands its AI-driven advertising capabilities across the open internet. Kargo said the expanded infrastructure will help it advance its Creative Science strategy while enabling advertisers to connect creative, context, commerce and measurement through a more intelligent and coordinated advertising system.

Associated Press
Aug 11th, 2026
Kargo partners with AWS to unify brand and performance marketing with AI-powered Creative Science

Kargo has signed a three-year Enterprise Discount Program agreement with Amazon Web Services to power its AI-driven advertising platform. The deal will support Kargo's Creative Science strategy, which aims to unify brand storytelling and performance marketing through AI-mediated orchestration. The partnership will enable Kargo to expand its use of AWS AI and data services for real-time decisioning in environments such as live sports and connected TV. The company will leverage AWS Bedrock and SageMaker AI for use cases including AI-assisted creative generation and dynamic campaign optimization. Kargo is also using AWS RTB Fabric to integrate data, identity, and measurement workflows. The agreement positions AWS as a key infrastructure partner as Kargo scales its AI capabilities across premium media environments.

Associated Press
May 5th, 2026
Kargo integrates with ChatGPT to unlock AI-native advertising opportunities

Kargo, an adtech firm, has announced an integration with ChatGPT, establishing itself as a technology partner within OpenAI's commercial ecosystem. The integration enables brands to engage in AI-native advertising opportunities within conversational and generative AI experiences. The partnership gives advertisers access to ads in ChatGPT and emerging AI-native formats, alongside performance insights and optimisation capabilities. Kargo will use its Creative Science technology to generate localised creative content at scale and test variations efficiently. The integration is already live with multiple advertisers, with more joining. Rolling out in phases, it allows brands to test and activate advertising as AI-driven experiences evolve. Founded in 2003, Kargo provides creative performance solutions across CTV, social media, retail media and the open web.

Kargo
May 5th, 2026
Kargo announces integration with ChatGPT, unlocking Access to emerging AI-Native advertising opportunities.

Kargo announces integration with ChatGPT, unlocking Access to emerging AI-Native advertising opportunities. May 5, 2026 Partnership enables new formats and scalable creative solutions for brands in next-generation AI experiences Kargo, a leading adtech firm bringing art and science together to orchestrate creative, context, and commerce across premium surfaces, today announced an integration with ChatGPT, establishing Kargo as a technology partner within OpenAI's emerging commercial ecosystem. As AI becomes a primary layer for discovery and decision making, brands must show up seamlessly across both human and AI-mediated journeys. Kargo is extending its platform to help brands engage natively within AI-driven environments, applying the same creative, context, and performance intelligence that powers outcomes across CTV, the open web, social, and retail media, with a foundation built for increasingly agentic, AI-driven execution. Kargo's integration with ChatGPT opens the door to emerging AI-native advertising opportunities, giving brands new ways to connect with audiences within conversational and generative AI experiences as formats evolve. As these capabilities expand, Kargo's agentic operating system will enable scalable creative generation, adaptive messaging, and optimization within these environments. Rolling out in phases, the integration creates a foundation for advertisers to test, learn, and activate as AI-driven experiences continue to take shape. The integration is already live with a wide range of advertisers, with more coming on board. "As consumer behavior shifts toward AI-driven discovery and decision-making, brands need new ways to show up that feel native to these experiences," said Michael Shaughnessy, Chief Operating Officer, Kargo. "We see AI as the next major surface, and our integration with ChatGPT ensures Kargo clients are not just participating in that shift, but helping define how brands show up with creative that drives real performance." Early Advantages for Advertisers As a technology partner, Kargo will deliver several immediate benefits to brands: * Access to ads in ChatGPT and new AI-native formats as they are introduced * Performance insights and optimization to inform strategy and execution in emerging AI environments * Close collaboration helping shape how brands show up in next-generation interfaces Solving the Creative Challenge of AI-Native Media Advertising in conversational environments introduces a new requirement: creative that can adapt, localize, and scale dynamically. Kargo addresses this through Creative Science(R), the intelligence layer that powers its platform and drives performance across surfaces. This includes: * Rapidly generating localized creative at scale * Using AI to create and test variations efficiently * Simplifying activation across managed and self-serve workflows As AI platforms become an increasingly important part of the media landscape, Kargo's integration with ChatGPT reinforces its role in helping define how brands show up and perform in what comes next.