Ad Industry Needs Standards Before AI Agents Start Buying Media: IAB Tech Labs' Anthony Katsur

Why It Matters

Without industry‑wide standards, AI‑powered media purchases risk eroding transparency, inflating costs, and destabilizing the programmatic ecosystem. Establishing guardrails now protects data integrity and sustains advertiser trust.

Key Takeaways

• IAB Tech Lab proposes AMP framework for AI‑driven ad buying.
• Data transparency and recency become guardrails for autonomous agents.
• Trusted Server shifts ad processing from browsers to publisher‑controlled servers.
• Programmatic Governance Council seeks ecosystem alignment on transaction standards.
• AI adoption expected to reshape ad workforce within 24‑36 months.

Pulse Analysis

The rise of artificial intelligence in advertising is no longer speculative; software agents are already capable of identifying audiences, planning campaigns, and executing purchases. Yet the speed of adoption outpaces the creation of industry safeguards, prompting IAB Tech Lab’s Anthony Katsur to champion a standards‑first approach. The newly announced Agentic Advertising Management Protocols (AMP) aim to codify data provenance, signal freshness, and audience definition, providing the transparency needed for autonomous decision‑making. By embedding these protocols into programmatic platforms, advertisers can trust that AI‑driven bids are grounded in reliable, auditable data.

Beyond the digital sphere, the Lab’s Trusted Server initiative tackles a parallel challenge: the erosion of tracking signals as browsers clamp down on cookies and other identifiers. Shifting ad processing to a server‑side environment under publisher control not only recovers valuable first‑party data but also mitigates ad‑blocking losses and enhances inventory valuation for open‑web buyers. Coupled with the Programmatic Governance Council—bringing together agencies, publishers, and tech firms—the effort seeks a unified framework that spans open web, connected TV, and mobile apps, reinforcing trust across the entire supply chain.

The operational implications are profound. Katsur predicts a 24‑ to 36‑month window for AI‑enabled workflows to become mainstream, compressing a decade‑long evolution into a few years. This acceleration will demand rapid upskilling of media planners, data scientists, and negotiators, as routine negotiations give way to algorithmic bidding. Companies that adopt AMP and Trusted Server early will likely capture efficiency gains, while those lagging may face fragmented data, compliance risks, and competitive disadvantage. The industry’s ability to harmonize standards now will dictate the pace and profitability of AI‑driven advertising transformation.

Original Description

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico — As artificial intelligence begins creeping into media buying, Anthony Katsur, chief executive of the IAB Tech Lab, has a simple request for the advertising industry: slow down and agree on the rules first.

“Standardization is needed or needed to be adopted in several areas,” Katsur said during an interview with Beet.TV contributor David Kaplan at the Beet Retreat San Juan.

The stakes are rising as AI systems begin to automate parts of media planning and trading. Katsur warned that the industry cannot simply unleash software agents to make buying decisions without clear standards around the data that fuels them.

Data transparency, he said, is especially important. Buyers need to understand what signals define an audience and how fresh the information is.

“What signal went into the definition of an audience? What is the recency of that data?” Katsur said. “We need to have broad alignment on the quality of data that is informing buys today.”

The need becomes even more urgent if autonomous software agents begin trading media on behalf of advertisers. Katsur said transparency becomes a guardrail in that environment.

“Data transparency creates that guardrail around how to trade on that data,” he said.

Agentic advertising enters the standards era

At the Beet Retreat, the Tech Lab introduced a framework called Agentic Advertising Management Protocols, or AMP. The initiative is meant to help the industry prepare for a world in which AI agents help discover audiences, plan campaigns and execute buys.

Katsur said he believes the framework could reshape the mechanics of programmatic advertising and extend automation into channels that historically required human negotiation.

“I think our Agentic Advertising Management Protocols will have a tremendous impact on how agentic workflows enhance programmatic trading,” he said.

The potential goes beyond digital media. Katsur said the framework could eventually help automate buying across traditional channels.

Agents, he explained, may be able to “discover, negotiate and buy linear television, terrestrial radio and out of home channels,” turning what were once manual processes into automated workflows.

Meanwhile, the Tech Lab is also tackling a separate technical challenge for publishers. Its Trusted Server initiative aims to move advertising processes away from the browser and into a server-side environment controlled by publishers.

That shift could help media companies regain signals lost as browsers restrict tracking technologies. Katsur said it may also help publishers recover inventory lost to ad blocking and provide stronger signals to buyers evaluating open web inventory.

There’s a spec for that

The Tech Lab often operates behind the scenes, writing the technical standards that allow the digital ad ecosystem to function.

Katsur joked that the organization’s engineers have a running line whenever a new problem is presented.

“There’s a joke floating around at the Tech Lab that there’s a spec for that,” he said, noting that many industry challenges already have technical solutions defined in existing standards.

The real task, he said, is convincing companies to use them.

“It’s really about ongoing evangelization and education of our existing specifications,” Katsur said.

In other words, before inventing the next flashy ad-tech tool, the industry might consider reading the manual it already has.

Trust in the supply chain still needs work

Despite years of effort, trust and transparency remain unfinished business in programmatic advertising. Katsur said the biggest challenges still sit in the supply chain that connects buyers, platforms and publishers.

“There has been genuine progress in the last couple years,” he said. “But I think we have a long ways to go in terms of improving trust and transparency in the supply chain.”

To tackle the issue, the Tech Lab launched a Programmatic Governance Council with participation from agencies, publishers and ad tech companies including Omnicom, Hearst and Zynga.

The goal is to get all sides of the ecosystem to align on how advertising transactions should work.

The challenge spans multiple environments including the open web, connected TV and mobile apps.

AI will change jobs faster than people expect

If the technology roadmap sounds complicated, the human implications may be even bigger. Katsur believes the rise of AI-driven workflows will force the industry to rethink how its workforce operates.

“The industry needs to level up or retrain the current talent pool to be able to start to take advantage of this new agentic world,” he said.

The timeline could be surprisingly short. Katsur predicted that the shift may unfold over the next two to three years rather than a decade.

“This is a 24- to 36-month evolution where agentic will streamline workflows and change the nature of knowledge workers in our industry,” he said.

In other words, the future of advertising may involve fewer sprea