How We Built an AI Media Buyer

I'm Chris. I run ZenoX Media, a Google Ads agency for ecom stores. In August 2025 we started building an AI agent startup to do what our media buyers do. We built Scaley on the agency's own notes and gave it hard rules about your money. It went live on 2 November 2026.

I filmed most of it. Each episode is in this post, with a link to the full episode page. The whole series lives on our building in public hub.

How Did We Build an AI Media Buyer?

We built Scaley on ZenoX Media's own agency notes, from running Google Ads for 400+ store accounts. We started in August 2025 with an outside dev agency. It was slow, so we hired our own developers. Scaley went live on 2 November 2026. Only the Scaley Suite can change an account, and only after your yes on that one change.

Why I Killed a Ready Brand to Build Scaley

I had an ecom brand ready to launch, with samples, a store, a website and a budget, and I killed it.

The agency already had the answers. We have 1,151 client questions, already answered. Think of the kind of thing store owners ask, like why a campaign spends and does not sell. Those answers lived in Slack, in voice memos and in our SOPs. A store owner running their own ads could not get to any of it.

The bet was to turn the agency's brain into something any store can ask.

Full episode, with chapters and the transcript: Episode 1 on christopherkrassnig.com.

The Outside Dev Agency That Burned Six Figures

I'm not a developer. So the first move was to pay an outside dev agency to build it.

It did not work out. We got delays. We got junior devs. We burned six figures.

Then we fired them and hired our own developers. The difference showed up fast.

We made more progress in the last 3 months than in the 9 10 months before.

- Christopher Krassnig, Episode 1

If you are starting an AI startup and you are not technical, learn from this. Some outside teams are great. Ours was not. And you only find out after you paid. Own the people who write your core code.

What Scaley Reads: The Agency Notes

A general chat model knows what the Google Ads help pages say. It has never sat in our Slack. We had real account decisions sitting right there.

On top of that sit 95 SOPs and 100+ playbooks. All of it comes from running ads for 400+ store accounts. That library belongs to ZenoX Media, the Google Ads agency behind Scaley. Scaley reads it when it prepares a change. No model was trained on it.

So when Scaley tells you to cut a search term, the reason comes from what our buyers saw happen in real accounts.

Vibe Coding the First Draft, Senior Devs for the Rest

This is how we build now. I vibe code the first draft of every feature with AI. I know Google Ads, so I know what the feature has to do. Then two senior developers make it solid.

The draft is fast. It is also fragile.

We had a dashboard that worked fine for 20 stores. Then we loaded 100+. Half of them broke overnight. A first draft that runs for 20 stores is not ready for real traffic.

You cannot launch something that's made for 20 stores if you needed to be ready for 300 plus.

- Christopher Krassnig, Episode 2

That quote is about the scale we had to be ready for.

The other lesson from that episode: data is the real moat. Anyone can wire a chat box to a model. Not everyone has real account decisions to read from.

Full episode: Episode 2 on christopherkrassnig.com.

Days Before Launch: 100 Users in 30 Days

A few days before launch, we had not talked to a single person yet.

So we held a strategy day. We set one goal: 100 users in the first 30 days. That is about three to four a day. We planned four sales channels to get there.

One lesson from that day: start selling early. We should have talked to store owners long before launch week. The other lesson is in the episode.

Full episode: Episode 3 on christopherkrassnig.com.

The Rules Scaley Follows

An AI that can touch your ad money needs a leash. These are Scaley's rules.

1. Read-only unless you pick the Suite. Scaley Consultant answers from your screenshots and CSVs. It connects nothing. Scaley Media Buyer reads your live account, read-only. It answers. It never changes anything, and it never goes scanning on its own. You ask, it answers.
2. A yes before every change. Only the Scaley Suite writes to an account, and only after you say yes to that one change.
3. The reason shown with every suggestion. A suggestion shows the numbers it looked at.

This is what a suggested change looks like inside the app. The numbers are blurred because it is a real account.

Nothing happens until you press Apply. Press Reject and the account never knew it was there. The full walk-through of that gate is in how an AI media buyer works, step by step.

Why It Waits for a Yes Before Every Change

People ask why we did not just let it run. Fully automatic would be easier to sell.

It is your money and your account. I would not want my own buyers changing a client account without a yes. Scaley finds the fix and shows you why. You make the call.

If a suggestion is bad, you see it before it costs you anything. Running your own account? Our guide on how to manage Google Ads with AI shows the same rule from your side.

What You See on Day One

Connect your account to Scaley Media Buyer and ask it where your money goes. You see your waste right away, in chat. No report to wait for.

The Scaley Suite dashboard also keeps a live counter. It reads "Scaley found X in wasted spend this week", with your real number in it.

There is a human part too. I run a live call every week. Bring your account questions and I answer them.

Building an AI Startup That Touches Money

If you are building an AI agent startup and your agent can spend someone else's money, write down what it may never do before you build what it can do. Ours are the rules above. Every feature has to fit inside them.

If you want an AI media buyer and not the build, pick like this. Do you want answers from screenshots and nothing connected? Take Scaley Consultant. Do you want answers from your live account with nothing changed? Take Scaley Media Buyer. That is the one we point most stores to. Want the changes made for you, one yes at a time? Take the Suite. All three are on the pricing page. If you want a team to run it all for you instead, that is what an agency like ZenoX Media does.

The whole category is laid out on the AI media buyer page. If you are new to the term, start with what an AI media buyer is. Every episode of the show is on the episodes page.