Why Amazon and YouTube pitched operating systems, not just TV inventory at this year’s upfront

Last week, media buyers were treated to back-to-back pitches from programmers eager to lay claim to their budgets, with Amazon Ads’ and YouTube’s offering standing out during a week-long beauty contest.

Both companies still leaned heavily on the traditional spectacle — celebrities, sports rights, creator talent, and blockbuster programming — but the real sales pitch was less likely to generate headlines in tabloid media outlets: authenticated identity, commerce data, AI-assisted buying, measurement, and programmatic infrastructure.

Mohammad Chughtai, vp of strategy and partnerships, MiQ, told Digiday that while content — or more importantly the audiences and attention it generates — is still at the core of the pitch, conversations around the management and engagements it enables, not to mention the ability to prove ROAS, are key to winning budget commitments.  

“More and more, the default posture from brands is, ‘I’m going to do an upfront with you, but I also want the flexibility, the addressability, the the attribution and measurement of a digital buy’… the large broadcasters, have responded to that,” he said, pointing to Disney’s DRAX offering as an example.

For Amazon in particular, the upfront no longer resembles a conventional TV sales exercise. Increasingly, media buyer agencies describe the company as a tech platform first, with premium programming, and adjacent ad inventory, attached.

“It’s a tech partner that has its own operated inventory, but they’re a tech partner first,” said one senior agency executive, who declined to be named because they were not authorized to speak publicly.

For many, the economics and politics of upfront negotiations are changing, with advertisers pushing for more flexible commitments as the availability of streaming inventory has ballooned in the 2020s. Meanwhile, a growing share of upfront dollars is now expected to be executed programmatically through private marketplaces and automated guaranteed pipes, creating operational tensions within TV companies still largely built around direct IO-based sales.

Amazon’s partnership approach

Amazon’s pitch this year was calibrated directly to those pressures.

“There’s this big shift from these content-first decisions into more of this integrated approach, where you have premium content, deterministic signals, and AI-driven technology all activating together,” Kelly MacLean, vp, Amazon Ads, recently told Digiday.

The company positioned itself as both a premium content seller and the infrastructure layer connecting fragmented TV buying. Alongside live sports inventory from the NBA and NFL, Amazon emphasized its unified demand-side platform and Ads Console workflow, AI-powered Ads Agent, interoperability via Model Context Protocol integrations, and a series of partnerships extending its reach across Roku, Netflix, Samsung, and Comcast inventory.

MiQ’s Chughtai described that strategy as “the most complete strategy in connected TV.” He added, “Their partnership approach is so unique relative to everyone else… They’ve kind of gone, I’m going to build a really big tent, and I’ll invite everyone to it.”

That “big tent” approach is partly a strategic necessity. Unlike YouTube, which has virtually limitless supply across long-form video, Shorts, and YouTube TV, Amazon’s owned-and-operated Prime Video inventory is comparatively constrained. The partnerships approach means Amazon to scale addressable reach beyond its own content footprint while reinforcing its broader pitch around authenticated identity and commerce data, according to separate sources approached by Digiday.

As more and more upfront dollars flow through programmatic systems, transparency has become imperative. Warner Bros. Discovery recently disclosed that 50% of advertiser demand for its biddable inventory now comes from upfront deals, while Disney said the figure is closer to 70%, according to background discussions circulating through this year’s negotiations.

Minimum spend requirements

At the same time, buyers still want the flexibility and accountability associated with digital media.

“More and more the default posture from brands is, ‘I’m going to do an upfront with you, but I also want the flexibility, the addressability, the attribution and measurement of a digital buy’,” observed MiQ’s Chughtai.

Meanwhile, separate sources observed how the current climate of Big Tech downsizing headcount across the board is having a downstream impact that’s reshaping the relationship between agencies and major media platforms, and this is being born out in how upfront deals are executed.

According to the senior agency executive, Amazon has simultaneously been reducing some internal support functions while pushing minimum spend commitments for direct DSP access into the tens of millions of dollars, forcing smaller agencies toward reseller arrangements. “They’re going down the Google route,” added the executive, who declined to be named to maintain relationships.

If Amazon’s pitch centered on infrastructure and interoperability, Google’s Brandcast leaned more heavily into commerce, creators, and scale, with its May 13 event running with the tag-line, “Welcome to the YouTube era.”

The company unveiled new creator-led programming alongside a series of commerce-focused ad products, including “Buy with Google Pay,” which lets viewers complete purchases directly from YouTube ads on connected TVs in two clicks. YouTube also emphasized AI-generated creative tools, affiliate commerce integrations, and shopping-focused ad formats while touting the platform’s scale across streaming, Shorts, and creator ecosystems.

For Chughtai, the commerce functionality stood out immediately. “The Buy with Google Pay on CTV — that was by far the most interesting product announcement in that list,” he said.

For most brands and retailers collapsing the gap between discovery and transaction on the largest screen in the home is the holy grail. Shoppable TV has long struggled to move beyond awkward QR code experiences, but both Amazon and YouTube are now betting that authenticated identity, stored payment credentials, and native TV operating systems can finally make commerce-driven television advertising work at scale.

“There’s been critics of shoppable TV,” said Chughtai. “The reality is we see real performance benefits for it by giving shoppers a way to transact on the big screen.”

Amazon and YouTube entered the market from different starting points. Amazon’s commerce graph already contains payment details, transaction histories, and cart data tied directly to retail activity. Google possesses many of the same signals but lacks the same embedded retail transaction loop.

“Amazon has your email, your credit card, your address, it’s got a cart,” Chughtai said. “Google has your email, they have your credit card, they might have your address… but the cart element is missing.”

Measurement concerns

Sources emphasized how this gap is proably why YouTube spent so much of Brandcast emphasizing partnerships, commerce integrations, and measurement capabilities alongside its creator and entertainment ecosystem.

However, measurement itself remains a sensitive issue for large platforms — particularly as more upfront budgets shift toward outcome-based guarantees and programmatic execution.

Digiday sources described YouTube’s measurement partner ecosystem as a structure that formalizes third-party verification while simultaneously keeping those vendors heavily dependent on Google’s own systems and contractual frameworks.

On paper, those companies operate as independent measurement providers. In practice, however, they rely on continued access to YouTube’s data feeds and certification programs in order to operate at scale on the platform.

As one ad tech founder put it, the arrangement often resembles “grading the platform’s homework” rather than independent auditing. According to one industry executive familiar with agreements tied to YouTube’s measurement partner program, the constraints are not just technical but contractual.

“Somebody showed me a contract that all those companies have to sign,” said the executive who declined to be named, claiming that non-disparage clauses in measurement partners’ contracts with the platform comprimise their ability to act as an honest broker.

Does anyone really care?

The concerns underscore a broader tension running through this year’s upfront cycle. Buyers increasingly want the accountability, interoperability, and independent verification standards associated with digital advertising, while simultaneously consolidating spend around a small number of giant platforms with vertically integrated infrastructure.

Underpinning both Amazon’s and YouTube’s presentations was the same market reality: buyers increasingly care less about ideological debates around walled gardens and independent infrastructure than they do about performance, scale, and operational simplicity. “In theory, independent platforms that don’t own inventory are better,” observed Nyrunberg. “But no one really cares.”

Per multiple sources, advertisers simply want inventory people actually watch, measurement they trust, and systems that don’t create execution headaches. Such dynsmics may explain why this year’s upfronts increasingly resembled negotiations over operating systems rather than television schedules.

The content still gets buyers into the room, but increasingly, it’s the infrastructure that closes the deal.