The advertising technology industry has spent the better part of two decades promising that computers would make media buying faster, smarter, and less dependent on the humans who built the systems in the first place. Now two of the field's more established players are taking another step in that direction, though whether it represents a breakthrough or merely an incremental improvement depends on one's tolerance for the word "agent."
The Trade Desk, the demand-side platform that has become one of the largest independent players in programmatic advertising, and Dstillery, a data company that builds custom audience segments, announced this week that they have linked their artificial intelligence systems to allow advertisers to adjust targeting in the middle of a campaign without the usual back-and-forth between platforms.
Previously, advertisers who wanted to use Dstillery's custom audiences through The Trade Desk faced a process that Taejin In, Dstillery's chief product officer, said typically required four days and considerable manual coordination. (In the programmatic world, where transactions are measured in milliseconds, four days is roughly equivalent to the Mesozoic Era.)
The new arrangement allows what both companies are calling AI agents — automated systems that can make decisions without human intervention — to communicate directly, adjusting audience parameters while a campaign is still running.
Mr. In, who goes by TJ, suggested that the integration represents a shift in how advertising technology platforms might work together in the future, with machines negotiating on behalf of their respective owners rather than waiting for account managers to exchange emails.
Whether advertisers will trust their AI agents to redraw audience boundaries without supervision remains to be seen. The industry has a long history of automating things first and asking questions about what exactly was automated somewhat later.
Original story published in adweek.com: "The Trade Desk and Dstillery Link AI Agents to Reshape Audiences Mid-Campaign"