Anthropic, Block, OpenAI and other artificial
intelligence (AI)-tech companies recently launched the Agentic AI Foundation (AAIF) to ensure that
agentic AI tools for advertisers and marketers develop as an open, collaborative ecosystem.
AAIF hopes to create a "vendor-neutral home for open-source agentic AI projects" — a
place where no one company dominates, and it can provide funding for community programs and research, including protocols.
Block contributed goose --its open-source agent -- to the AAIF, along
with Anthropic's Model Context Protocol (MCP) and OpenAI's AGENTS.md.
Major supporters include Amazon Web Services
(AWS), Google, Microsoft, Bloomberg, and Cloudflare. Other significant members include IBM, Salesforce, Cisco, and Hugging Face.
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Integral Ad Science
(IAS) is not an official member or part of the Agentic AI Foundation (AAIF), but on Tuesday the company announced IAS Agent, a new AI-powered assistant that helps those in the advertising
industry activate campaigns more rapidly to provide more in-depth insights and the ability to optimize performance instantly.
The agent is backed by more than 15 years of proprietary IAS
insights. The company plans to demonstrate the agent at CES 2026, and expects to roll it out globally at no additional cost in early Q1 2026.
Last week, the IAS released a report suggesting
media experts are finally embracing AI -- although cautiously, centering their brand strategies on the evolution of digital video and social media to improve performance.
The findings point to
a complex media environment where innovation is balanced with an emphasis on brand protection and performance, which is one reason for the launch of the AAIF.
“2026 marks a turning point
in digital advertising,” said Integral Ad Science CEO Lisa Utzschneider. “As the boundaries between channels blur — and AI reshapes how content is created, consumed, and
measured — industry experts are redefining what quality means in this new era."
The IAS study found that 61% of
advertising and marketing experts are excited about AI developments in digital media and the opportunities it unlocks for advertising within gen-AI content, and that media quality has become the basis
for performance.
Some 86% of advertisers participating in the IAS study say there is a need to identify, classify, target and avoid AI-generated content within digital video platforms, and 83%
said measuring ad fraud, viewability, and suitability are important to driving performance outcomes within retail media networks.
Among participating advertisers, 83% agree that ad fraud and
brand suitability will be a major concern as the volume of CTV inventory grows, and 69% cite ad-content adjacency as a major digital media challenge with ad fraud and measurement and outcomes rounding
out the top three.