• by Laurie Sullivan , March 13, 2026

Perion Networks this week extended the agentic capabilities of its "Outmax" AI agent from commerce, retail media and connected television (CTV) platforms to a social platform with nearly 1.6 billion users worldwide.

Ad revenue for TikTok is expected to exceed $50 billion by 2027, according to Statista.

Tal Jacobson, Perion CEO, told MediaPost the company began to shift its algorithms into performance about 20 months ago. Its AI agent works across YouTube, CTV, Meta Platforms, and now TikTok.

“The agent does not represent the inventory,” he said. “It’s channel agnostic and only supports the goal for the advertiser.”

Later, he added that “many people confuse agentic user interfaces like chatbots for agentic executions like agents.”  

The AI algorithm sits on top or between the advertisers and demand-side platforms, and operates on behalf of customers. It learns from each engagement with the ad. From that learning process, companies are beginning to see results. In fact, Outmax for TikTok already has gained up to 25% better advertising performance.

When asked how companies can stop rogue agents, Jacobson said advertisers must work very closely with them or they can send unexpected emails or charge credit cards.

“We spend the majority of the time writing 'breaks' into the agents to gain better control,” he said. “The advertising world is just getting used to using the word 'agent,' but it’s really not new. For example, Tesla is an agent -- an AI that drives a car.”

Integrated with TikTok, the platform applies algorithmic intelligence beyond native defaults, enabling advertisers to optimize against brand-defined business outcomes rather than platform-standard key performance indicators (KPIs), which is what helps to increase performance.

Perion had strong fourth-quarter and yearly 2025 revenue performance, which the company reported last month.

CTV revenue rose 59% year-over-year, while digital-out-of-home (DOOH) revenue rose 28% YoY and retail mediarevenue increased 42% YoY, which Jacobson attributed to agentic technology.

Another example of an agent may be Fly by Wire, software that for years has helped to fly commercial planes, according to Jacobson. Now companies are starting to use it to improve performance in ads.

Amazon has reported a 10% increase in average order value for customers with its AI-powered recommendation engine.

Nike in mid-2025 reported a 25% increase in conversions attributed to its "virtual stylist" AI agent, which was widely reported as a key performance milestone. It factored into the company’s in-app search experience and personalized recommendations in the U.S., according to Muge Erdirik Dogan, the executive vice president and chief technology officer at Nike.

Disney Ads Agent launched in January 2026 to support autonomous planning that navigates its audience data to build campaign strategies, select inventory, and suggest creative optimizations without human manual entry of data.

While Disney began by developing these tools for internal teams, it has since transitioned them into client-facing products for external advertisers.