17 June 2026

How Agentic AI is changing media buying, measurement and ad tech

The foundations of agentic advertising are already being built

As artificial intelligence continues reshaping how consumers discover products and services, the advertising industry is undergoing its own transformation behind the scenes.

At a recent IAB industry event, discussions ranged from AI-assisted commerce and media buying infrastructure through to measurement standards and direct publisher relationships. While each session explored a different part of the ecosystem, a common theme emerged.

The industry is rapidly building the foundations for an agentic future.

New protocols are being developed. Buying and selling relationships are becoming more direct. AI agents are being positioned to automate increasingly complex workflows. And throughout it all, measurement is working to keep pace with the speed of change.

For marketers, the most important takeaway is not any single product announcement.

It’s that the advertising infrastructure underpinning the next decade of digital marketing is already being built.

AI isn’t replacing customer journeys. It’s compressing them.

One of the strongest signals came from Criteo’s latest Agentic Commerce research.

Despite concerns that AI assistants may eventually replace traditional discovery channels, current consumer behaviour suggests a more nuanced reality. According to Criteo, 96% of shoppers using AI assistants still engage with traditional channels alongside them, while only 5% complete an entire purchase journey within a single application.

What is changing, however, is the efficiency of those journeys.

AI-assisted sessions are generating 254% higher revenue per visit compared to standard search sessions, while traffic referred from large language models is converting 1.5 times higher.

The underlying reason appears to be the growing adoption of what Criteo describes as multi-constraint prompting.

Rather than beginning with a broad search and refining over multiple interactions, consumers are increasingly providing detailed requirements upfront. Budget, product features, preferred brands, delivery requirements and use cases can all be included in a single prompt.

The result? AI systems can compress large parts of the traditional discovery, consideration and evaluation process into a much shorter decision-making journey.

For marketers, this represents a significant shift.

The customer journey is not disappearing. It is becoming increasingly condensed.

The infrastructure layer is being rebuilt

If AI-assisted commerce represents the consumer-facing side of the equation, the technical infrastructure supporting agentic advertising is evolving just as quickly.

One of the most significant discussions came from IAB Tech Lab, which outlined a series of initiatives designed to support agentic advertising environments.

At the centre of this is Model Context Protocol (MCP), a framework that enables AI agents to connect with external systems, tools and data sources.

Alongside MCP sits Agent-to-Agent (A2A) Protocol, which allows multiple AI agents to communicate and collaborate with each other.

In practical terms, this could allow a campaign planning agent to work alongside audience, optimisation and measurement agents, each responsible for different components of campaign execution.

Importantly, the industry is not building these frameworks from scratch.

IAB Tech Lab is extending many of its existing standards into agentic equivalents, including Agentic Direct, Agentic Bid, Agentic Deals, Agentic Ad Objects and Agentic Creative.

Supporting initiatives such as Agent Registries, Creative Readiness Agents and agentic audience frameworks are also beginning to emerge.

Collectively, these developments signal that agentic advertising is moving beyond experimentation and becoming part of the industry’s long-term infrastructure roadmap.

The future of buying and selling looks increasingly direct

Another recurring theme throughout the day was the industry’s growing focus on reducing complexity within the supply chain.

Google Authorised Buyers’s new Buyer Direct initiative reflects this shift.

Currently in alpha, Buyer Direct allows agencies to purchase guaranteed inventory directly from publisher ad servers through Google Ad Manager, while introducing features such as consolidated billing, campaign reporting and cross-publisher frequency management.

The objective is to simplify relationships between buyers and sellers while reducing friction within existing workflows.

The discussion aligned closely with broader industry conversations around Supply Path Optimisation (SPO).

Panel discussions highlighted that many agencies currently work across 15 to 20 supply partners, creating additional technology costs, duplicated bidding activity and reduced transparency.

By consolidating supply relationships, buyers can potentially reduce operational complexity, improve transparency and direct more budget towards working media.

Publishers largely supported the principle, albeit from different perspectives.

News Corp reinforced the importance of maintaining direct supply paths and minimising reseller activity wherever possible.

Foxtel’s Kayo highlighted the operational realities of live sports environments, where reliability, latency and user experience often outweigh theoretical efficiency gains.

One example shared during the discussion highlighted how server location alone can introduce meaningful latency during live streaming events, reinforcing why some publishers remain cautious about adding additional technology layers into the delivery process.

Despite differing priorities, the broader direction was clear.

The industry increasingly wants fewer intermediaries and more direct relationships between buyers and sellers.

Measurement remains the biggest unresolved challenge

While agentic infrastructure continues evolving rapidly, measurement remains the area where many of the industry’s biggest questions persist.

Recognising this challenge, IAB Australia outlined ongoing work to develop more consistent industry standards across planning, delivery and outcomes measurement.

The objective is straightforward.

As advertising becomes more complex, marketers, agencies and publishers need greater consistency and transparency to evaluate performance confidently.

The need for that work is becoming increasingly apparent.

Cross-publisher frequency management remains difficult. Reach duplication is often poorly understood.

Many reporting environments can effectively report impressions, spend and CPMs but still struggle to provide a complete view of how inventory is distributed across fragmented supply chains.

This becomes even more important as buying models continue evolving.

Consumers do not distinguish between Direct IO, Programmatic Guaranteed and open marketplace inventory. They simply experience advertising.

Yet frequency management is often determined by campaign budgets and buying mechanics rather than a unified view of the consumer experience.

As AI systems become increasingly involved in campaign execution and optimisation, these measurement challenges are unlikely to become simpler.

In many ways, the industry appears further advanced in building agentic infrastructure than it is in measuring the outcomes those systems ultimately generate.

What this means for marketers

The strongest signal from the day was not the emergence of another AI product.

It was the growing recognition that agentic systems require new infrastructure, new buying models and new measurement approaches.

The technology underpinning agentic advertising is advancing rapidly. New protocols, standards and workflows are already being developed to support a future where AI agents play a more active role in planning, buying, optimisation and analysis.

The challenge for marketers will be ensuring measurement, governance and transparency evolve at the same pace.

Because as AI increasingly intermediates how consumers discover, evaluate and purchase products, understanding what happened inside those journeys may become significantly harder than influencing them.

Louder’s recommendations

• Start building literacy around agentic advertising: Concepts such as MCP, A2A and agentic workflows are likely to become increasingly important across ad tech, media buying and measurement conversations over the coming years.
• Review supply path complexity: As Buyer Direct, SPO initiatives and direct publisher relationships continue evolving, organisations should reassess whether every intermediary in their current supply chain is still delivering measurable value.
• Prioritise measurement infrastructure: The effectiveness of future AI-driven buying systems will depend heavily on the quality of underlying measurement frameworks, identity strategies and data architecture.
• Focus on transparency, not just automation: Automation can improve efficiency, but organisations still need visibility into how media is bought, delivered and measured.
• Treat frequency management as a customer experience issue: Consumers do not care how advertising was purchased. They care how often they see it. Unified approaches to reach and frequency will become increasingly important as media environments continue fragmenting.

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