• by Laurie Sullivan , Staff Writer, Yesterday

Yahoo is betting that agentic services will provide interoperability across the advertising ecosystem -- and a few companies are giving it a try.

The Yahoo DSP's "Agent Network" which launched Thursday, connects advertisers to specialized solutions and gives them more innovative ways to run Yahoo DSP campaigns.

It operates as an open framework that connects advertisers with AI-powered agents from 23 technology partners to automate audience targeting, creative development, and campaign measurement.

This framework uses open APIs and Model Context Protocols (MCP), allowing advertisers to plug in external AI models directly alongside Yahoo’s native automation tools. DoubleVerify, Clinch, Integral Ad Science (IAS), Kochava, Mediaocean's Innovid, MIQ, PMG, Publicis Group's LiveRamp, Pacvue, Snowflake, and many others are participating as launch partners. 

"Advertisers and agencies rely on a wide range of platforms, data providers and measurement partners every day,” said Mark Zagorski, CEO at DoubleVerify. “Agentic AI has real potential to reduce the fragmentation and dashboard-hopping that plagues marketing, making it easier to access intelligence, recommendations and activation through connected agents.”

DoubleVerify on Wednesday launched its new AI engine for agents, DV Neura.

Advertisers can work with preferred partner AI agents across every stage of media buying for their Yahoo DSP campaigns -- with enterprise-grade governance, compliance and authentication built in.

These types of platforms, when automated, will attract many more advertisers to AI ads -- to such an extent that advertisers will not have an option to sidestep AI agents.

The future of advertising will focus on automation and agentic advertising.

“The number of advertisers that have started testing ads on ChatGPT is much higher than I expected,” Debra Aho Williamson, founder and chief analyst of Sonata Insights, a research and advisory firm launched in 2024 that helps advertisers navigate marketing, consumer behavior, and monetization on AI platforms. It shows “ChatGPT has already crossed an important threshold.”

In fact, 1,419 brands launch unique brands have advertised to U.S. consumers on ChatGPT’s Android mobile app between February 10 and May 24, 2026., Williamson wrote, citing Sensor Tower data.