A consortium of companies across the advertising ecosystem have announced the launch of Ad Context Protocol (AdCP), an open standard that enables AI agents to communicate directly across advertising platforms.

The founding members include Optable, PubMatic, Scope3, Swivel, and Triton Digital, along with supporting members such as Classify, The Weather Company, Butler/Till, Raptive, Samba TV, Newton Research, and Accuweather.

“AdCP gives the advertising industry a chance to establish shared technical infrastructure and standards that aim to accelerate progress,” said Adam Broitman, Partner, McKinsey & Company.

Similar to how OpenRTB standardised real-time bidding for programmatic advertising, AdCP standardises agent-to-agent communication for agentic advertising — enabling AI agents to transact directly without requiring real-time auctions for every impression. AdCP also creates a bridge between today’s programmatic ecosystem and the emerging agentic future, allowing agents to work with existing DSPs, SSPs, and ad servers while establishing the technical foundation for new ways of transacting as the industry evolves.

How AdCP lays the foundation for agentic advertising

AdCP reverses the traditional flow: instead of publishers auctioning inventory to buyers in real-time, advertiser agents communicate their needs directly to publisher agents, which respond with relevant inventory and capabilities.

This enables several fundamental changes:

• Direct access to inventory. Advertisers can access specific publisher audiences and inventory directly (e.g., “women interested in ultramarathons on Yahoo”) without navigating complex programmatic infrastructure.

• Unlimited product flexibility. Publishers can offer any advertising product requested in a brief — no matter how niche — without being constrained by manual packaging or operational lift.

• Flexible transaction models. Rather than auctioning individual impressions in real-time, agents can transact on audience segments, engagement, or other value metrics that align buyer-seller incentives.

• Reduced complexity and cost. By eliminating the need to auction every impression in real-time, AdCP removes layers of intermediaries and dramatically reduces the computational overhead of current systems.

• Improved transparency. Direct communication establishes clearer accountability and economics between advertisers and publishers

Built on Anthropic’s Model Context Protocol, AdCP establishes a unified interface for AI agents operating in advertising. AdCP is governed by a neutral working group representing all sides of the ecosystem: publishers, advertisers, agencies, and ad tech platforms. It is not owned by a single vendor and is designed for open contribution and broad adoption. The protocol is available now for any company to implement.

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Categories: Press Releases

Tags: advertising, AI, Pubmatic, Samba TV