Agentic ad buying is shifting from a distant experiment to a near-term operational expectation. According to IAB Europe research reported by Digiday, 58% of ad executives across 44 European markets expect agentic buying to reach operational use or scale within a year.
The survey of 50 ad executives, conducted in spring and summer, shows sentiment moving from wait-and-see to active planning. But the findings also expose a clear divide between larger and smaller organisations.
Adoption splits along company size
Company size is the strongest predictor of progress. Among respondents at businesses with 501 or more staff, 86% said their most advanced agentic systems already operate with people and agents planning, delegating and executing work together. For companies with 500 staff or fewer, that share falls to 48%.
Expectations for fully agentic trading are similarly mixed. Three in ten respondents (30%) expect AI agents to become a main way of buying and selling ads in some markets, while 28% expect regular use without that level of scale.
The broader market reflects this split: WPP and Omnicom are testing buyer agents, CNN and News U.K. are building sell-side agents, and advertisers such as Georgia-Pacific want more proof before committing.
Where agentic AI is working now
So far, agentic AI is being deployed where oversight is easier and output is measurable.
- 47 of 50 respondents said their organisations already use AI internally.
- 43 of 50 use AI specifically for marketing.
- Reporting, analysis and dashboards was the most cited AI-supported workflow, selected by 22 of 29 respondents.
- Programmatic optimisation came next, with 59% of the vote.
Efficiency is the dominant measure of success: 68% of executives who responded to the full survey said their organisations judge AI on efficiency gains.
Autonomy, security and the trust gap
Even as investment rises, most teams are not handing over full control. Of 47 respondents, 36 said their organisation either had no agentic system running day to day or still had people directing and planning alongside it.
Security was the top concern, with privacy second. That caution explains why deployments cluster in reporting and programmatic optimisation rather than fully autonomous buying. At the same time, budgets are moving up: respondents said they are spending more on AI in 2026 than in 2025, and 59% are increasing investment in AI marketing technologies specifically.
Omnicom CFO Phil Angelastro made the commercial case that as AI improves measurement, it becomes easier to prove return on investment to clients. But Converge Digital CEO Ian Maxwell is more sceptical, saying agentic buying ‘automates a few small parts of a huge process yet still needs human monitoring and oversight.’
Where marketing teams should start
For CMOs and media teams, the practical takeaway is to pilot agentic tools in reporting, analysis and programmatic optimisation before granting more budget autonomy. These are the areas where performance is easier to evaluate and the risk of unchecked automation is lower.
The real test will not be whether agentic buying works technically, but whether it improves the outcomes CMOs are accountable for. The industry is moving toward wider adoption, but at clearly different speeds.
Source: Digiday
