"Agentic ad buying isn't coming soon; it's already here. And it was the dominant theme at the May 2026 edition of the Digiday Programmatic Marketing Summit, held May 6 to 8 in Palm Springs, Calif. Executives from brands including Duluth Trading Company and agencies such as Butler/Till discussed how they're already using AI agents to buy ads. During behind-closed-door town hall sessions, programmatic marketers shared how they are incorporating AI agents into other parts of their programmatic workflows, such as quality assurance processes."
"But just as important as how marketers are adopting agentic AI are the rules and guardrails they are putting in place around their AI use, which was a major topic of conversation on and off stage. Each Digiday event kicks off with the edit team breaking down current industry themes. Here's where we think we are: AI agents are participating in programmatic ad buys. AI compute costs are a new ad tech tax. Shared standards are necessary to avoid agentic ad buying repeating the problems of programmatic's past and creating new issues."
"Writing the rulebook for agentic ad buyingAI agents can help automate ad buying, but they should not be given full autonomy. Brands and agencies are putting guardrails in place. OMD, for example, sees the potential to allow AI agents to make campaign optimization decisions in the second half of this year, but "there's still a need for a human to sign off on that work," said th"
AI agents are actively participating in programmatic ad buying, with brand and agency executives describing current use cases. Marketers are also applying AI agents to other programmatic workflows, including quality assurance. Adoption is paired with live hands-on experiences where teams use AI agents to compete for ad deals. A major focus is the rules and guardrails governing agentic AI, including limiting autonomy and requiring human sign-off for optimization decisions. Industry priorities include shared standards to prevent repeating past programmatic problems, managing new AI compute costs, and addressing transparency and control. Platform convergence and supply chain consolidation are also changing power dynamics among intermediaries, including agencies.
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