Agentic buying may help audio leapfrog CTV, says AdsWizz’s Anne Frisbie

It feels like everyone sees agentic AI as providing the next unlock to their businesses. Count SiriusXM-owned AdsWizz in that mix.

Anne Frisbie, AdsWizz’s senior vice president of global business development, believes audio’s consolidated nature makes it easy to integrate agentic systems. In fact, she’s so confident that she thinks this may even lead to audio leapfrogging connected TV in agentic buying.

Frisbie spoke with The Current’s Lee Singletary about the company’s partnership with Apple, why creators are diving into podcasts and how ad spend through audio hits the next level.

How is programmatic audio evolving, and what needs to change to unlock that next wave of spend from buyers?

That’s a super interesting question because AdsWizz is a leading SSP for audio, and we’ve been investing in programmatic now for 12 years. Yet this year, we’re probably doing more investments in programmatic to make it even easier to do digital audio buying.

But I also think if you want to talk about the true next wave of spending, we’re finally seeing buyers wanting to partner with AdsWizz as an SSP for audio. In conjunction with running buys on DSPs, having those partnerships on the sell side can help people either on curation or even on the early stages of agentic buying.

Audio almost presents an opportunity to leapfrog [connected TV]. Most of agentic buying has been focused on CTV, but audio is very consolidated in terms of the supply-side tech.

So it’s actually maybe an even easier place for people to get some of these new models going and work on a partnership with AdsWizz, while still enabling them to run buys through their DSPs.

Research consistently points to the fact that audio plays a powerful complementary role in omnichannel campaigns. How do you think about that unlocking new audiences and opportunities?

Audio is this screen-free, high-attention place. It’s interesting that even with Instagram Reels and TikTok and all the short-form content that’s out there, we’re seeing in podcasts that creators are actually making longer-form content. It’s almost going in the opposite direction. And so that’s a great place to add your message.

We’re seeing that it really helps in aided recall and message association and a lot of brand lift metrics, because it is a very personal place to put your ad.

You can do that in very authentic ways. You can use host-read advertising as a way to really align with that creator. That’s the place I see audio is super different than a lot of forms right now, and I think very complementary.

The easy example, of course, is in-car moments, where you’re not going to reach that audience from other channels. It’s a great way to add these types of moments when people are on the go and multitasking.

You mentioned in-car moments. For me, it’s the on-the-treadmill moment.

For me, it’s hiking. You think of YouTube as a video platform, but sometimes I’m in listening mode. And it’s such a great opportunity for marketers to reach people in those moments like you on the treadmill.

Do you view AdsWizz’s role as a means of democratization in a way? Openness in the ecosystem.

For sure. We’re really hoping to be that platform in the ecosystem that can partner with a lot of different types of publishers and creators — and make their workflow and their life easy.

So they can distribute content, sometimes in the walled gardens, but also into the open ecosystem, and then unlock the revenue opportunities around that. The audience opportunities around that, both for those creators and for the advertisers.

That is probably our biggest passion. We work with all these different premium publishers that use AdsWizz as their ad tech and content platform.

I hope our success is able to knock down more walls to create a bigger family, a bigger tent that everyone can play in, in whatever ways they want.

I love digital media. I love this industry. I’ve been in it for 30 years, and I passionately believe in that.

It’s a foundation of why I’m excited about this Apple partnership. We’ve always wanted them to be participating in the open ecosystem, and this is the first time we’re seeing that. We’re going to try our best to make it as successful as possible and unlock it for programmatic buyers too.