Agencies Restrict AI Agents From Transactional Buying

Agency executives at Digiday’s Programmatic Marketing Summit in New Orleans in 2025 discussed generative and agentic AI’s role in programmatic advertising, concluding agents should be kept away from transaction points. They recommend using AI for pre- and post-transaction tasks such as media planning and performance analysis while instituting stronger training, human oversight and accountability. Participants warned that opacity, hallucinations and compliance risks could harm pricing transparency and client trust.
Key Points
- 1Advocates restrict agentic AI from transaction points in programmatic buying to preserve control.
- 2Warns that agentic opacity and hallucinations increase pricing and performance opaqueness, undermining trust.
- 3Advises training staff on AI limits and programmatic fundamentals to supervise agents and ensure accountability.
Scoring Rationale
Provides actionable industry guidance on agentic AI adoption but relies on event-level discussion lacking formal data or broad consensus.
Sources
Public references used for this report.
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