Release 153

An AI assistant built into the console — free to try during a launch promo, on your own Anthropic key, your network's or the platform's — that creates and links creatives, runs reports, diagnoses delivery and empty reports, checks VAST tags and links and reads raw logs; restore deleted advertisers, campaigns, banners, sites, zones and placements; and stricter permissions on billing.

Reference network manager admin

In progress. This page summarizes what Release 153 brings so far; entries are added as the release fills out.

Release 153 is the AI assistant release. Every account gets an AI assistant tab: a chat in which you run your account in plain language — “pull yesterday’s revenue by campaign”, “make a 300×250 banner from this image and link it everywhere it fits”, “why isn’t this placement filling?” — and it does the work as you, with exactly your permissions. It is free to try during a launch promo. Alongside it, anything deleted by mistake can now be brought back, and changing the network’s billing takes the permission it always should have.

Things to act on.

The AI assistant is on for Network Manager–type roles from day one — every account role that views all campaigns and all inventory gets the new AI Assistant Chat permission; other roles do not. Administrators can switch it on or off per role in Admin → Users & Access → User Roles & Permissions.

On the platform’s key, the assistant is billed to your network after the promo. Usage is free until November 8, 2026, up to $20 for the whole network, and each user is capped at $20 a month unless an administrator sets another limit. To avoid platform billing, add your network’s own Anthropic key or let users add theirs — see Which key it runs on.

Billing plans are now changed by Epom support only. The Ad Server Fees page still shows your plan and the billing statistics, but no longer saves or activates a plan or recalculates charges; ask Epom support or your account manager for those.

New features

An AI assistant built into the console

Open Account → AI assistant and ask. The assistant finds, creates and edits advertisers, campaigns, creatives, sites, zones and placements, sets targeting, capping and limits, links banners, gives ad tags and runs reports — the same tools as the MCP connector from release 152, so it can do nothing you could not do in the console. Each tool it runs shows as a step you can open, entities it creates or finds come back as links, and before a delete, a change to several entities at once, or a budget, price, bid or payout change it lists what it is about to do and waits for your yes. Every change lands in the action log under your name, marked as made through the assistant.

Attach images, video, HTML5 ZIPs, PDFs, CSV or text (up to 50 MB each) and say “create a banner from this” — the creative always stores its own copy of the file. Each chat runs on Fast (the default), Balanced (4× the price) or Deep (8×); every reply shows its cost, and the assistant suggests a stronger or a cheaper model with a one-click button when it would help. It answers in the language you write in. See Work with the AI assistant and, for how to ask and example prompts, Get the most out of the AI assistant.

Your own Anthropic key, your network’s, or the platform’s

The assistant runs on the first key that exists: your own (a new Preferences → AI assistant card), else your network’s (a new AI (Anthropic API key) section in Admin → White label → API keys), else the platform’s, when your network’s billing plan offers it. Your own and the network’s key are paid to Anthropic directly and the platform bills nothing for them; the platform’s key is billed on your network’s Epom invoice. Keys are checked with Anthropic before they are saved, stored encrypted and never shown again — only their last four characters. With no key at all, the assistant page explains the three ways to get one. Ask in analytics and the traffic-quality AI analysis are unchanged and not billed. See Which key it runs on.

Usage on the platform’s key costs your network $0 until the last day of its promo — for every existing network November 8, 2026 — up to a shared $20 allowance for the whole network. Each user’s monthly limit still applies, the spend meter says Included in your plan until November 8, 2026 with what is left, and when the promo is over a note in the assistant explains the options: keep using it billed, add your own key, or use your own Claude through MCP. The promo is set per billing plan, so a new network gets one when its plan does. See The promo month.

See your AI spend and cap your own key

Preferences → AI assistant shows which key you run on, what you spent this month, and the limit that applies with who set it. On your own key you can set your own monthly cap there; on the network’s or the platform’s key, the limits your administrator sets apply — per user on the user’s edit form, or a network-wide default that Epom support sets on request. Administrators see every user’s usage in Admin → Billing & Fees → Ad Server Fees → AI assistant usage. See Preferences and Set monthly limits.

Restore what was deleted by accident

An advertiser, campaign, banner, site, zone or placement deleted in the last 90 days can be brought back — from the new Recently deleted page on the advertiser and publisher tree, from Undo in the message right after a delete, over the REST API, or by asking the AI assistant. A restore puts back what the delete took down: the on/off state, banner–placement links, targeting and everything deleted along with it. Deletions made before this release cannot be restored this way. See Restore something you deleted.

Ready-made formats from Epom’s template library

Ask the assistant for a format your account lacks — “a catfish with this image” — and it describes the template, adds it from Epom’s template library after you agree, builds the creative on it and links it. It never adds the same template twice. Available on networks where Epom has switched the library on. The assistant can also read and change a template creative’s settings — a video overlay’s Parent Selector, a catfish’s position or close button. See Templates.

Report a bug or ask for a feature from the chat

Tell the assistant something looks broken, is missing or is awkward, and it can file a bug report, feature request or improvement with the product team — or a support request for what only support can switch on for your network (a module, an RTB endpoint, a serving domain). It first checks whether a setting explains the problem, shows you a short draft, and files it only after your yes. See Report a bug or ask for a feature.

Improvements

The assistant diagnoses delivery and reports

Why isn’t it serving now also finds a level switched off by a reached Total limit, an expired end date, a full placement or site limit, links switched off, a creative’s own dates, which part of a type or size mismatch fails, and device targeting no visitor can pass on both sides. See Why is my ad not serving?
Why is my report empty names the first reason a report comes back empty — future dates, a missing permission, data older than it is kept, a filtered entity that did not exist yet, filters that contradict each other — and otherwise finds the filter that leaves nothing. See My report is empty.
Why did it drop compares two periods and names the country, creative, placement, device or hour that moved most; low fill explains a placement’s requests vs impressions by creative.
What does this link return checks a media file, click URL, pixel, VAST tag or page from the ad server’s network: status, redirects, a VAST summary, and the video player’s CSS selector on a page. It runs no JavaScript and comes from a datacenter, so a geo- or device-targeted tag may answer differently than for a real visitor.
Raw event logs: questions about single clicks, impressions and conversions — clicks without impressions, repeated IPs, where clicks come from — over up to 3 days, with the log reports’ permissions. See Ask the assistant to analyse the raw logs.
Advanced reports — region and city, referrer, custom parameter, device, connection — with the same permissions as the console.
Product questions are answered from this help center, extended with the questions clients ask support most often.

Video campaigns: playback events are no longer conversions in limits and capping

VAST playback events (start, quartiles, viewability, player interactions) used to count as conversions in a campaign’s, banner’s, advertiser’s, site’s or placement’s Conversions limit, reset the CPA Auto Deactivation counters and trigger Action capping. They no longer do: those now see only real conversions, so a conversion cap on a video campaign is no longer filled by playback, and CPA Auto Deactivation can finally stop a video campaign that does not convert. The events are still billed and still count toward budget (revenue) limits, and a per-action limit set on an event’s action — say, 10,000 viewable impressions — still counts that event. Counters that playback already inflated are left as they are; reset one with its eraser if a campaign stopped early.

REST API changes you may notice

An API key now needs API Key Access on its role for the analytics report (/rest-api/analytics/{format}) and the MCP endpoint (/mcp) too, as on every other REST call. A key issued before the permission was switched off answers 403 there. If an integration stops, switch API Key Access on for its role.
A site’s CPM threshold (/rest-api/sites/{siteId}/cpm-thresholds, its delete, and the console card) now needs Manage Publisher CPM Threshold to change — read-only is enough to read it. The permission used to only hide the card; no stock role holds it, so an integration that sets thresholds answers 403 until your network administrator switches it on for its role.
Grouping or filtering an analytics report by Referer or Top Domain over the REST API now needs the Referer / Top Domain report permissions, as the console always did; without them the call answers 403.
A JSON analytics report no longer repeats a field name. Where several columns share a display name (the Base, Publisher and Advertiser Impressions, Clicks, CTR…), the last keeps the name — the value parsers already read — and each earlier one is now named by its column id (publisher_impressions), so its figure is no longer lost. Add jsonKeys=id to name every field by column id, the same in every language. See JSON output.
The analytics report parameter epomThirdPartyReportingAnalyticsType is gone, and saved reports and dashboard widgets no longer list it. A request that still sends it is answered as if it were absent — with every column the report normally returns — and a saved report or widget stored with it opens and runs as before.
GET /rest-api/serving-check reports a deleted creative, campaign, advertiser, placement, zone or site as a blocker instead of answering 404 (404 remains for an id that does not exist).
New: restoring deleted entities (/rest-api/deleted-entities/…), empty-report checks (/rest-api/analytics/report-check), link checks (/rest-api/url-check), raw-log analysis (/rest-api/analytics/raw-log-analyze), template-creative settings (/rest-api/banner/{bannerId}/template-properties) and the AI assistant usage report (/rest-api/ai-chat/usage.do). See the API reference.

Bug fixes

The assistant’s reports broke for non-English interfaces. Sorting and totals found nothing for a German or Ukrainian account; they now work in every language.
Changing the network’s billing is now Epom support’s job. Saving or activating a plan, switching the pricing type, editing the billing organization or a monthly record and recalculating charges used to be allowed from the view-only Ad Server Fees page; the page no longer offers those controls — ask Epom support or your account manager. See Finances, fees and referral billing.

Under the hood

The assistant runs on Anthropic’s Claude API; attachments are kept in your network’s existing file storage. Ad serving and analytics are unchanged.