Why publishers aren’t completely sold on agentic advertising

The public discourse and coverage of agentic advertising have seemingly been reduced to competing workflow ideologies, largely reflected by Ad Context Protocol (AdCP) and IAB Tech Lab’s Agentic RTB Framework.

The former, launched by a group of tech companies late last year, aims to standardize agent-to-agent workflows across the advertising ecosystem from scratch. The latter seeks to build agentic workflows on top of existing programmatic infrastructure.

But publishers are asking different questions — ones less concerned with which standard should win. Based on TeqBlaze’s conversations with publishers, their worry is simpler: Most of the market still does not understand how agentic advertising works in practice.

This is not a protocol-specific problem; it is a market-level transition issue. People can talk about AI agents conceptually but struggle to explain how they would operationalize them.

If the goal is faster adoption, then the industry needs to reduce recruitment-style messaging and increase practical, step-by-step explanations.

A lack of understanding does not just slow curiosity. It blocks adoption. If teams cannot explain the mechanics end to end, they do not test confidently; they do not trust workflows; and they do not push the solution internally.

What ‘we don’t understand it’ actually means

The confusion shows up on two levels: technical misunderstanding and ecosystem misunderstanding.

Technical misunderstanding: Despite many bright minds in the ad industry doing their best to break down the technical minutia of agentic advertising, many people we speak with cannot translate the topic into a concrete sequence of actions. They hear “agents,” but they cannot describe the actual interaction flow. The questions are very basic:

• Who initiates a request?

• What exactly is inside that request?

• Who responds, and what does a response look like?

• Where does verification, approval and execution happen?

Without a step-by-step scenario, “agent interaction” stays a buzzy phrase with a lot of hype, not a workflow.

Ecosystem misunderstanding: Even when people know the vocabulary, they often do not have a clear map of the ecosystem. They are missing a simple picture of:

• Who are the actors and where do responsibilities start and end?

• What artifacts exist in the workflow (messages, objects, logs, identifiers)?

• What do data flow and money flow look like?

Without this map, it is hard for publishers to evaluate risk, control and operational impact.

There is a communication problem

We have a language issue. I have seen people treat the words “protocol” and “framework” as trendy labels rather than concrete specifications. That leads to proclamations that “there are no standards,” even when standards exist or are being built.

Inside the core community, this is engineering. Outside, it can easily be perceived as a vague concept. Media coverage can unintentionally reinforce this by repeating the framing that “standards are missing.”

What is missing is not the protocol. What is missing is translation. The market needs the standards explained in practical terms:

• What do they actually do?

• What steps actually happen?

• What data is exchanged?

• What rules and controls exist?

OpenRTB is the standard-bearer (no pun intended). Most people in programmatic have a basic mental model of OpenRTB. Publisher, SSP, bid request, response. Even non-engineers can envision that request-response picture.

The powers-that-be need to better articulate:

• The actors and their roles

• The sequence of interactions

• Where verification, approval and execution sit

• What categories of data move where and what stays private

• What gets logged and what can be audited

• How billing and settlement are expected to work at a high level

Many experts across the ecosystem have put real effort into clarifying these issues. But based on our conversations with publishers, it’s not quite breaking through.

This is also an opportunity for the ecosystem

The industry needs more than “education” in the abstract. It needs practical actions that reduce adoption friction for publishers, especially from people already inside the community.

Right now, the public messaging often leans toward: “Agentic is exciting, join us.” Publishers need to hear more of: “Here is how it works. Here is what you control. Here is what changes operationally.”

Standardization without accessible knowledge does not drive adoption.

This op-ed represents the views and opinions of the author and not of The Current, a division of The Trade Desk, or The Trade Desk. The appearance of the op-ed on The Current does not constitute an endorsement by The Current or The Trade Desk.