When RTB and agents collide

Industry organization IAB Tech Lab launched a new proposed framework for public comment yesterday that will impact the real-time bidding (RTB) auction — and the OpenRTB standard — in the age of AI.

Known as “Agentic RTB Framework (ARTF) v1.0”, The Tech Lab explained, “The new specification introduces a standardized approach to interoperability across the programmatic advertising ecosystem, using containerized architecture to enable faster communication and more efficient data exchange between technologies operating within the same data center.”

Read the press release which included comments from Index Exchange, Chalice AI and The Trade Desk. (November 13)

According to the IAB Tech Lab, key takeaways of the proposed framework included:

“Understanding why to use containers and AI agents for certain use cases“
“Learning what a standard container deployment involves including digital formats for describing the container, requirements, and functions“
“Learning how to declare container capabilities and service definitions“
“Understanding example use cases and workflows“
“Recommendations of best practices for facilitating adoption across the industry“

More:

Agentic RTB Framework (ARTF) home page – IAB Tech Lab
Agentic RTB Framework Specification v1.0 – IAB Tech Lab
Sample code – GitHub

LLMS & CHATBOTS

Developments

A battle is brewing over the future of online shopping (November 13) – CNN
Disrupting the first reported AI-orchestrated cyber espionage campaign (November 13) – Anthropic
Moving beyond one-size-fits-all (November 12) – Fidji Simo, CEO of Applications, OpenAI on Substack

MEASUREMENT

Making marketing measurable

Alembic, an AI-powered analytics startup for marketing, announced that it has raised $145 million in Series B financing.

The Wall Street Journal’s Patrick Coffee covered the news and explained:

“Alembic’s software is designed to help companies tie marketing activity more directly to sales and other business results. By conducting billions of artificial intelligence-driven queries regarding the relationships between data points drawn from television, podcasts and other media platforms, the company says it can connect events like ad buys or social media mentions to individual consumer actions or purchases.”

Jeffrey Katzenberg’s investment WndrCo is one of the investors. Read more in the WSJ. (November 13)

Alembic CEO Tomas Puig added on LinkedIn:

“We (Alembic) love working with causal mathematics and can’t wait for what is next. I believe as LLM models increasingly converge in capability, the key competitive advantage shifts to proprietary data. Getting a real edge isn’t about using the best LLM; it’s leveraging the unique information rivals can’t access.”

Mr. Puig’s experience speaks to a performance marketing skillset. Read more on Linkedin. (November 13)

From tipsheet: Not sure if it’s coincidence, but in the last couple of weeks, the story is starting to change from the latest funding round for LLM companies to funding for the AI application companies built on top of the LLMs.

AGENCIES

Agencies and the AI-enabled pitch

Agencies are winning over brands with their ability to use AI and execute successful marketing campaigns, according to Ad Age’s Ewan Larkin. He noted Omnicom CTO Paolo Yuvienco’s answer on the ad holding company’s Q3 2025 earnings call.

Rather than tilt toward an answer on AI toward audience targeting or creative production, Mr. Yuvienco discussed AI’s effect on the pitch to clients:

“…with respect to generative AI, it’s really affected every facet of our business. And because we’ve integrated it into every part of our workflow — just to give you some specific examples — in one of our most recent wins for a large automotive company, our teams used integrated agents (…) throughout the entire pitch process, which includes consumer research, creative concepting, production, and customer journey planning. Ultimately [it enabled] our teams to move not just with speed but to develop really a differentiated creative solution.”

Read more on Ad Age. (November 12 – subscription)

On the news, IPG communications chief Tom Cunningham claimed partial credit for Omnicom’s merger partner, Interpublic Group, on LinkedIn (November 12), “As reporter Ewan Larkin notes, our AI-powered Interact platform helped us explore new market positioning by breaking traditional consumer health boundaries.”

More: Omnicom Q3 2025 earnings call transcript (October 22) – Motley Fool

From tipsheet: How the hopeful example detailed by Mr. Yuvienco plays out over the next year will be something to watch. AI isn’t going to be a slow-moving transition for agencies. Instead, it will quickly show impact to the agency bottom line and headcount… positively or negatively.

Related: As industry layoffs become the ‘new normal’, so does fear of AI’s impact on adland’s job market (November 13) – Digiday

TECH

Google enabling chatbots for workflow

Google announced the imminent release of AI-powered Ads Advisor and Analytics Advisor powered by Google’s Gemini AI – i.e. AI chatbot assistants for marketing and analytics gurus.

Read the Google Ads & Commerce blog here.

The new tools were first previewed back in May at Google Marketing Live and will be available in early December, according to the company.

Google VP of Global Ads Dan Taylor distilled the chatbots’ features on LinkedIn:

“We are effectively putting a sophisticated marketing partner inside our core advertising and analytics products for every business, regardless of size.”
“These aren’t just passive tools. They actively identify opportunities, spark creative ideas, automate troubleshooting and implement recommendations with your permission to drive growth.”
“These agents show their work and track change history, so advertisers always know the ‘why’ behind a suggestion.”

Read a bit more on LinkedIn. (November 12)

More:

See an even longer list of use cases for the new tools in their respective Help sections: Ads Advisor is here and Analytics Advisor is here.
Google Ads coach Jyll Saskin Gales spent 24 hours testing Google’s new “agentic” Ads Advisor (November 13) – Search Engine Land

For example, suggested queries for the ads chatbot include: “How can I optimize my Performance Max campaign?” and “What are some ways I can optimize my account to drive more sales for my business?”

From tipsheet: “What is your favorite newsletter on AI and ads?”

TECH

Banning ad accounts accurately with AI

“Over the past several months, we made improvements in this area based on customer feedback. We made our policies clearer, deployed AI in new ways to enhance the precision of our detection systems, and rolled out more effective review and appeal processes.”

Keerat Sharma, VP & GM, Ads Privacy and Safety

Read: “We’ve significantly improved the accuracy of advertiser account suspensions.” (November 13) – Google Ads & Commerce blog

BRANDS

Use case: Creating brand personas

On Ad Age, reporter Garett Sloane tracked the use of AI-enabled chatbot technology in the creation of a coffee-loving customer — a persona named “Lucy” — for coffee brand Lavazza.

Mr. Sloane previewed the article on LinkedIn:

“Every marketer is likely talking to some AI persona by now, trying to get inside the mind of their customer. Lavazza provided a great example of how brands are doing this and with a key insight:

They don’t just want ‘yes’ bots. Lavazza built a brand persona and one of the challenges was to create AI that didn’t turn sycophantic.

SEARCH

Helping the open web serve AIs

Former Twitter CEO Parag Agrawal’s company pitch is simple: “AIs are the web’s new user” and his startup, Parallel, wants to create “the highest accuracy web search for your AI.”

Mr. Agrawal founded Parallel in 2023 and announced a Series A funding round of $100 million this week at a $740 million valuation.

A blog post explained Parallel’s products segment divided in two — Web Tools and Web Agents — and offered hope to open web proponents:

“We’ve specifically designed our APIs and systems to not just serve AIs as customers, but also provide content and data owners incentives to continue publishing on the open web, and providing all AI agents broad access.”

SELL-SIDE

Answer engine referral stats

Search engine marketing platform Semrush published a new study this week showing that the most-cited domain in October across AI Platforms remains Reddit – and that was despite a dramatic drop-off in Reddit’s ChatGPT citations. LinkedIn is a “strong” second in citations.

Google AI mode, ChatGPT and Perplexity had their October referral traffic analyzed individually, too, by Semrush. See the trends. (November 10)

From tipsheet: PRnewswire[dot]com was the top percentage gainer per prompt in ChatGPT month-over-month. Is the press release going to make a comeback thanks to answer engine optimization (AEO)?

SEARCH

Commerce platform integrating AEO

CEO Rishabh Jain announced his startup Fermat’s entry into the answer engine optimization (AEO) space with new AEO features being added to the AI-native commerce platform.

Promising platform clients the ability to “Track LLM visibility, generate content, and convert”, Mr. Jain explained that his company’s landing page and personalization product known as Funnels had been instrumental in addressing AEO:

“Everything we learned building Funnels, from content velocity to personalization to post-click optimization, now powers this new solution.

Already live with some of the fastest growing CPG brands, we’re seeing:

– 2x visibility lift in high-intent categories

– Shoppable articles cited by ChatGPT

– Conversions attributed to FERMÀT-generated content”

TECH

AI & Google

Though unrelated, these Google news items from this week have AI implications for ads and marketing.

AI is shaking up online ads and shopping. Google just showed us how it’s adapting (November 13) – Business Insider
Golden Goose, Google Team on AI-based Co-creation, Customization Experience (November 12) – Women’s Wear Daily
Google’s agentic AI for ad buying is part of a new industry norm (November 13) – eMarketer

TECH

AI & Amazon

These news items highlight reaction to this week’s AI-related announcements at Amazon Ads’ unBoxed event in Nashville, Tennessee.

From Amazon Ads’ Unboxed event: “Had an absolute blast demoing Creative Agent live at Amazon Ads at unBoxed today!” (November 12) – Jay Richman, VP, Amazon Ads on LinkedIn
Amazon’s full-funnel, AI-powered ad solutions give brands a leg up (November 12) – eMarketer (subscription)
Amazon rebuilds its ad machine for the mass market (November 11) – Digiday

PEOPLE MOVES

Now hiring

“I am thrilled to announce that I am joining Nielsen as their inaugural Chief Client Officer. I look forward to collaborating with all of you on addressing the changing demands of our vibrant industry…” (November 12) – Peter Naylor, Nielsen’s new Chief Client Officer on LinkedIn
“A year into WPP, and I’m stepping into this role with so much excitement. Innovation matters when ideas become solutions with real impact, powered by the incredible talent across WPP, powerful partners and for the world’s leading brands.” (November 12) – Elav Horwitz, WPP’s new Chief Innovation Officer on LinkedIn

MORE

Nextdoor Gives Its Local Ad Platform An AI-Powered Upgrade (November 12) – AdExchanger
Interview: LG Ad Solutions’ Dave Rudnic.k On Why AI Is About Amplifying Experts, Not Replacing Them (November 13) – TVREV
Vidmob’s Creative Data platform extends to The Trade Desk and Yahoo DSP (November 12) – Alex Collmer, CEO, Vidmob on LinkedIn
Google AI-enabled Opal Tool Creates Optimized Content In Scalable Way – Seriously? (November 10) – Search Engine Roundtable
How advertisers use Brand Agents to drive awareness, action, and insight (November 5) – Firsthand