The practice brings together deep expertise in creative, technology and customer experience to help clients navigate the current fundamental shift in how consumers discover and engage with brands

NEW YORK, June 18, 2026 /PRNewswire/ -- Today, Barbarian announces the launch of Adaptive Brand Solutions, a dedicated practice for helping brands make the shift to dynamic, intent-driven experiences. Drawing on the full depth of the agency's strategy, creative and technology capabilities, Adaptive Brand Solutions is built to help brands show up where intent begins, deliver differentiated experiences and build the direct relationships that keep people coming back for more.

The Adaptive Brand practice will be led by members of Barbarian's executive leadership team, including the agency's managing director, Jeff Blackman, also a member of the 4As AI Committee and Kai Tier, executive director of enterprise creative technology & AI who recently joined Barbarian from R/GA. Rounding out the team is new hire Dave Becker, who joins Barbarian from Huge, as director of strategic alliances. Dave will spearhead the integration of Adaptive Brand Solutions into enterprise experience platforms such as Adobe. Becker brings more than a decade of experience building and scaling alliance programs, having spent the last several years growing partnerships across platforms like Adobe and Salesforce.

Why launch the Adaptive Brands practice now?

The Barbarian 2026 Commerce Study conducted last month found that only 27% of shoppers describe online shopping as inspiring, and over half say they've stopped buying from a brand because the website or app was frustrating to use. Consumers expect fast, intelligent and intuitive interactions that understand intent in real time. A frictionless experience is no longer a differentiator, it's the expectation.

"Consumer expectations have outpaced the experiences brands are delivering, creating the 'Interaction Gap.' Closing this gap requires a fundamentally different approach, one built around adaptive behaviors with brand differentiation at the core," says Blackman.

Since 2001, Barbarian has built a reputation for creativity, innovation and industry-changing digital work. The 2024 acquisition of g-Innovations added the enterprise technology muscle to match. Adaptive Brand Solutions is the natural culmination of that.

"The way consumers engage with brands has fundamentally changed and most brands have not kept pace," says Jeff Blackman, managing director of Barbarian. "Adaptive Brand Solutions brings together the creative and strategic capabilities Barbarian has always been known for with the enterprise technology depth to actually deliver at scale, building on what clients already have to help them compete in a fundamentally different environment."

"Brands are under pressure to deliver smarter, more intuitive customer experiences, while also rethinking how their organizations operate behind the scenes," says Kai Tier, executive director of creative technology and AI. "The challenge is that those two things are often disconnected. We help brands close that gap, delivering better experiences for customers while making the underlying technology and transformation actually work inside the business. That takes a deep understanding of users, emerging technology and the realities of the enterprise."

Founding Client: Citizen Watch America

Barbarian is already bringing Adaptive Brand Solutions to life with Citizen Watch America, applying the capabilities of the new practice to expand and enhance the brand's commerce experience and deepen customer engagement.

"Barbarian has been an excellent partner in helping us build experiences that connect our customers with everything Citizen has to offer. We are excited to be a founding client of Adaptive Brand Solutions as we continue to evolve and deepen those experiences," says Barbara Garces, chief digital officer, Citizen Watch America.

Powerful Partnerships: New Generation & Adobe

Within Adaptive Brand Solutions, Barbarian is announcing a partnership with New Generation, an AI software company co-founded by Jonathan Arena and Adam Behrens. New Generation helps brands operate in a world shaped by AI, by giving them brand-owned commerce agents. Its core product, Kepler, is the intelligence and runtime layer behind those agents; helping brands turn their websites into programmable storefronts that can understand shopper intent, reason over brand knowledge, connect to catalog, cart, checkout and other systems, plus generate a personalized or custom commerce experience in real time across channels. Barbarian is New Generation's first advertising agency partner.

"At New Generation, we believe brands need more than a chatbot or a static storefront. They need their own commerce agent," says Jonathan Arena, co-founder, New Generation. "Our partnership with Barbarian reflects a shared belief that the future of commerce belongs to brands that combine strong creative identity with intelligent, programmable infrastructure."

Barbarian's in-house engineering team has also done extensive work in the Adobe Experience Cloud unlocking new value for clients. Because of this expertise Barbarian has achieved Gold Solutions Partner status with Adobe.

How the Adaptive Brands Practice will operate

The Adaptive Brands Practice is organized around five core service offerings: Adaptive Commerce, Adaptive Experience, Adaptive Content, Adaptive Relationships and Adaptive Workflows. Underpinning all of it is Barbarian CORE, a proprietary library of tools, components, connectors and integrations that enables the agency to deliver with greater speed and impact.

To learn more about how your brand can become adaptive visit HERE.

About Barbarian
Barbarian is a creative and innovation agency that is dedicated to helping brands find better ways to interact with their audiences in today's rapidly evolving cultural and technological landscape. We combine world-class tech expertise and relentless creativity to unlock potential in every interaction. Since 2001, Barbarian's legacy of creativity and innovation has been a driving force behind industry-changing work for some of the world's greatest brands. From breakthrough campaigns to reimagined brand experiences, we pride ourselves on a commitment to inclusive and courageous innovation that guides everything we do as we shape the future of our client's digital narratives. Barbarian is the first agency to launch an AI focused Adaptive Brands practice and is the lead technology agency within the Cheil Agency Network (CAN) and we have been awarded Gold Status in the Adobe Digital Experience Partner Program.

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SOURCE Powell Communications