What’s The Protocol?
Something agentic is afoot.
On Tuesday, The Trade Desk announced its first in-platform AI agent, called Koa Agents, meant to help with workflows and other tasks. Agency group Stagwell is the pilot partner, Ad Age reports.
Microsoft Advertising likewise announced a bevy of AI-based product updates this week, including new campaign agent services.
But back to The Trade Desk, it’s not just launching an agent; it’s also trying to define the system that agents run on for online advertising with its Open Agentic Kit. (Would that be OAK for short?) TTD joins an increasingly crowded field that includes the IAB Tech Lab’s Agentic Real Time Framework, a parallel industry collab called the Ad Context Protocol, a PubMatic product called AgenticOS and Criteo implementation of Model Context Protocol.
Choose your contender.
There’s broad agreement, at least in theory, that agentic systems will need some level of interoperability to function. In practice, though, each player also wants to be the thing that everybody else plugs into.
Which, ironically, will end up being one of the primary impediments to marketer and industry adoption of the tech.
Click O’Clock
OpenAI launched its ads business by charging based on CPMs, meaning clients would pay per thousand views. But now, a few months in, advertisers can buy on a cost-per-click (CPC) model as well.
The CPC model means buyers can better compare the performance of their ads on ChatGPT to other channels, namely Google Search, making this move the obvious next step.
CPC ads, as Digiday puts it, are “Google’s home turf.”
Next, OpenAI will have to prove that the clicks it generates are worth the high cost and, just as importantly, that ChatGPT can deliver traffic and intent at scale. Intent is why Google Search is such a cash cow.
LLMs are “starting to bridge that gap,” says Adthena CMO Ashley Fletcher, which is what turning on cost-per-click ads is all about.
To finish constructing that bridge, however, OpenAI needs boots on the ground – or, rather, more fingers on keyboards. No wonder Open AI posted a job earlier this week seeking an advertising marketing science lead.
Programmatic Frenemies
Index Exchange is now allowing demand-side platforms to run their bidding logic within its exchange. The product behind this effort, Index Cloud, aims to make media more cost effective by removing the need for server-to-server bid requests, Adweek reports.
The lines have been blurring for years between SSPs and DSPs, as each seeks bigger slices of a shrinking programmatic ad pie. But Index Exchange’s latest move goes beyond disintermediation. Instead, the SSP is trying to attract smaller DSPs by offering them a chance to compete with the big kahunas. (Cough, cough, The Trade Desk, Google’s DV360 and Amazon.)
Bedrock Platform, a 2-year-old DSP with roots in AI tech, is the first to operate its bidder within Index Exchange. It’s still too early to point to concrete results, but Bedrock says it’s seeing improved impression delivery, higher win rates and “fairly massive” cost savings so far.
Still, unlike other SSPs with direct-to-demand products, Index Exchange has been very vocal about its intention to remain a sell-side company. CEO Andrew Casale even wrote an open letter to DSPs promising not to disintermediate them.
Question is, how much can Index Exchange truly service the buy side without breaking its promise?
But Wait! There’s More!
A StackAdapt pilot program is pitching ChatGPT ads at CPMs as low as $15 with a $50,000 minimum spend. [Adweek]
Hyundai Motor America CMO Sean Gilpin on how data-driven decision-making has factored into the auto brand’s overall growth strategy. [Chief Marketer]
How will incumbent Apple CEO John Ternus tackle the company’s AI investments? [The Verge]
The OpenAI-Anthropic rivalry is getting heated (but not in a fun HBO way). [Axios]
This satirical AI tool can develop clones of licensed open-source software, raising questions about the fragility of copyright protection. [404 Media]
Paramount+ is adding short-form video to its mobile app. [Reuters]
X significantly increased how much it costs to post a URL via the X API, up from one cent per post to 20 cents. [The Verge]
You’re Hired!
Basis promotes Christian Hendricks to president. [release]
DISQO hires Terri Walter as CMO. [release]
OpenX hires Lior Charka as VP of product, and promotes Joseph Worswick to SVP of global partnerships and Erika Loberg to VP of CTV and curation. [release]
Rob DeSalvo joins Brand Innovators as EVP of growth and strategy. [blog]
