• by Joe Mandese , Yesterday

An agentic bragging rights war appears to be heating up heading into the ad industry’s annual gathering in Cannes next week, with today’s news that WPP Media is developing a new industry standard for media-buying – specifically, for “buyer agents” purchasing video advertising inventory.

The first-mover announcement is consistent with big historical moves by WPP Media and its predecessor organization, GroupM, to move the industry forward by developing media research and/or technical standards for buying media – from Nielsen ratings to CTV – in order to prevent industry inertia around key media technology developments.

WPP this morning revealed it already is working with key media suppliers and industry standards bodies to “define how TV and video buyer and seller agents interact safely, transparently and at scale.

WPP disclosed that the new agentic standards initiative includes Comcast Advertising and its FreeWheel ad tech unit, Disney Advertising, Fox, NBC Universal, Netflix and Paramount, as well as the IAB Tech Lab and Prebid.org, which are helping to “define how the WPP Buyer Agent and media owner Seller Agents communicate, validate, support approved media transaction workflows, and escalate decisions.”

“Two decades ago, the move to programmatic marked a fundamental change in how media was bought and sold. We expect agentic media to have an even bigger impact on our industry in the months and years ahead,” WPP Media CEO Brian Lesser said in a statement announcing the standards initiative, adding, “The companies that lead this next era will be the ones that combine intelligence, interoperability, and governance to define how media decisions are made. That’s what we are building with our partners: a trusted buyer-agent strategy designed to operate in our clients’ interests, maximize the value of their media investments, deepen consumer relationships, and translate intelligence into growth.”

IAB Tech Lab CEO Anthony Katsur also disclosed that the initiative is benchmarking the new media buyer agent protocol on the tech lab’s AAMP (Agentic Ad Management Protocols) framework.

WPP said “initial testing” of the new media buyer agent has already begun with its supply-chain partners with a “goal of moving from alpha and beta testing to a model capable of supporting large-scale TV and video investment over the next 6–9 months” and plans to share its findings – as well as reference workflows, tech learning, and a formal proposed industry standard – in early 2027.

But the news is bound to generate even more agentic buzz at next week’s Cannes Lions festival, following a cheeky video released Tuesday by Publicis, as well as a white paper issued by influential advertising management consultant 3C Ventures late last week that cautions advertisers about using proprietary holdco agentic advertising systems.

And also this morning, Horizon Media announced a it has added its own proprietary "buying agents" to its HorizonOS Blu platform.