‘That is an objective’: Omnicom tests AI agents to cut out the ad tech middlemen

CEO John Wren, who on the call described ad tech intermediaries as extracting a “toll” paid ultimately by clients, said shortening the path between Omnicom and publishers is a strategic priority the company is actively investing in. He added: “There aren’t too many major groups that are looking to have more direct relationships with the publishers. That is an objective, and it’s something we’re investing in as we sit here today.”

Agentic media buying, where software can negotiate directly with publishers, is how Omnicom intends to reduce that dependency — not necessarily eliminating DSPs and SSPs from the equation entirely, but diminishing the role they play and, with it, the cut they take.

The holdco is already testing that thesis. Head of AI Paolo Yuvienco said the infrastructure had already been proven out before Omnicom’s investor day last month, with money successfully flowing through to publisher inventory. Since then, the company has executed live buys for several clients using the framework, which is built around the Ad Context Protcol, developed specifically for agentic media buying.

“We’ve actually executed real media buys for several clients using our agent framework, doing agent to agent buying, which is all in service to shortening the media supply chain,” said Yuvienco. 

The subtext of that is margin. Wren, asked about pricing on the call, argued that as the supply chain shortens and manual work gets automated away, Omnicom’s remaining contribution — strategic, creative, data-driven — commands a higher price. Cutting out the intermediaries, in other words, isn’t just about delivering more working media to clients. It’s about repositioning what Omnicom gets paid for.

Central to that argument is Acxiom, the data business Omnicom picked up when it closed the IPG deal late last year. Without a robust data layer, agentic media buying is just a cheaper pipe. Acxiom’s Real ID product gives Omnicom a first-party data spine that, in theory, makes those direct buys not just more efficient but more effective — i.e. better targeting without the reliance on DSP data or third-party cookies. In simple terms. Its the data that makes the shorter supply chain worth taking seriously.

Omnicom’s timing is notable. The holdcos have spent the better part of this year in open conflict with the ad tech platforms they route spend through. Most visibly The Trade Desk, which has been locked in a public dispute with Publicis over a transparency audit that has since pulled in other holdcos including Omnicom. Beneath the specifics of that row sits a more fundamental question: who controls the data, the relationships, and ultimately the margin in programmatic. Agentic buying doesn’t resolve that dispute, but it does suggest a path to making it moot.

For publishers, the implications cut both ways. Direct relationships with holdcos sounds like good news — fewer middlemen, potentially more of the ad dollar reaching them. But it arrives at a moment when open web spend is already under pressure, squeezed by the walled gardens on one side and by broader advertiser caution on the other. If agentic buying accelerates consolidation of spend toward a smaller number of direct publisher relationships, the winners could win bigger — and those outside that circle could find themselves further from the money than ever.

Amir Malik, managing director of consulting firm Alvarez & Marsal Digital, said to expect programmatic open web share to keep shrinking over the next three to five years. 

“The open web is in structural decline due to many factors including Google AI Mode, Gemini, Claude, and OpenAI as primary user interfaces. Thi sis also driven by signal loss and weak distribution, meaning budgers are reallocating to closed ecosystems with deterministic data – like retail media,”