The ‘hot dog vs. sandwich’ problem in AI advertising

Which is where Ad Context Protocol (AdCP) is meant to come in. AdCP is one of multiple new efforts to put some infrastructure around the incorporation of AI agents into advertising. IAB Tech Lab’s User Context Protocol and Agentic RTB Framework are two other recent examples. 

In this episode of the Digiday Podcast, Digiday executive editor of news Seb Joseph and senior ad tech reporter Ronan Shields join hosts Kimeko McCoy and Tim Peterson to outline how the ad industry is laying the pipes for programmatic advertising’s intersection with AI agents.

Why are such guardrails needed? Because AI agents are ultimately incredibly capable, exceedingly knowledgeable idiots. If you were to ask an AI agent simply to make you a sandwich, you’re leaving it up to the AI agent to decide what kind of sandwich, and it could come back with a hot dog, which you may or may not consider a sandwich.

Now think of an AI agent having that kind of decision-making power when managing six- and seven-figure ad buys. Thus, guardrails.

Here are a few highlights from the conversation, which have been edited for length and clarity.

WTF is AdCP?

Joseph: Think of it as a language, a standardized, common language for AI agents to communicate with each other across the ad supply chain. It’s designed to give AI agents a standardized way of talking to each other, essentially. Just a dictionary, right, that they can all reference in order to be able to figure out what each other are doing and then act accordingly.

Agentic AI’s OpenRTB moment

Joseph: It is something probably to be commended that the industry is trying to anticipate disruption before it hits. Almost like a pre-emptive OpenRTB moment, right? Everyone knows agentic workflows are coming, but nobody wants a repeat of the 2010s where infrastructure ossified under one company’s ecosystem, essentially.

AdCP’s absent proponents, pt. 1

Joseph: The stakeholders that are amassing around all of these standards — advertisers and publishers and broadcasters, they don’t seem to be involved in any yet. You’d like to think that at some point they will have to be. Otherwise, again, we go back to what was happening a decade ago with some of those sort of issues. I would like to see maybe even more urgency, but also more thought that goes into these protocols, these guardrails, just being a lot more inclusive about the resident industry, because it does feel a little bit like they’re very specific to a contingent of the market that, cynically, stands to benefit the most from all of this stuff.

AdCP’s absent proponents, pt. 2

Joseph: It’s almost just as interesting who isn’t backing AdCP as it is who is [backing the proposed standard]. When you look at the companies that are missing, no Index [Exchange], no OpenX, no big DSP, really. No Amazon. We were speaking to them on Monday, and we asked them [about AdCP]. They were pretty reticent to talk about. There was no real hint that it would be something that they would genuinely need to consider either.