WPP Media, the media arm of advertising group WPP, announced on Thursday 18 June that it was developing a video Buyer Agent inside its WPP Open platform.1 Alongside it the agency convened an Agentic Standards Initiative, a shared effort to agree common rules for buyer and seller AI agents, with six of the largest US rights holders.
WPP buys advertising on behalf of brands, the buy-side, and a Buyer Agent is software that places and adjusts those buys automatically. The partners were defining and testing communication standards; the release cited IAB Tech Lab's AAMP and Prebid's AdCP work. The named partners are Disney, Netflix, Fox, NBCUniversal, Paramount and Comcast Advertising's FreeWheel, working with the standards bodies IAB Tech Lab and Prebid. Initial testing had begun, with large-scale operation targeted within six to nine months. The release did not establish spending already routed through the agent.
WBD rebuilt the sell-side on Amazon Web Services; WPP is developing the buy-side agent and its communication standards. The two halves connect only if the standard holds, and six rivals agreeing an interoperability spec at a press conference is easier than shipping one. The same fortnight that Meta put a price on AI access to its own platforms, the agencies moved agentic buying to the centre of theirs. The EU's Code of Practice on marking AI-generated content applies from 2 August, yet it still carries no media or broadcaster signatory, so the buying standard is arriving ahead of the disclosure rules.2
