Digiday Daily

May 11, 2026

Agentic media buying promises a reinvention of the programmatic ecosystem, but experts are divided on whether it could help – or hinder – accountability. We explore the cases for and against agentic media buying.

TOP STORY

The Programmatic Marketer

The case for and against agentic media buying

Agentic media buying promises a reinvention of the programmatic ecosystem, but experts are divided on whether it could help – or hinder – accountability.

OTHER THINGS TO KNOW

Join us in NYC on July 15 for Digiday’s CTV Advertising Strategies, hear how top brand and agency executives are navigating the opportunities and challenges in today’s streaming ad market and what they say it will take for streaming to overtake the TV once and for all. Pass prices rise after June 2.
AI gives marketers speed. Landing pages that used to take weeks to build now take minutes. But people with disabilities stop buying from brands whose AI-built sites make it impossible to complete a purchase. Partner insights from AudioEye.
Increasingly, viewers turn on their TVs without a fixed plan. Nielsen estimates that viewers spend as long as 10.5 minutes browsing on the home screen before they decide what to watch. Partner insights from Nexxen.

MARKETING

The Programmatic Marketer

‘Google doesn't care that it's terrible’: Brand, agency execs air frustrations with The Trade Desk, Google’s Performance Max, Meta’s Advantage+

Think transparency is hard to come by in programmatic advertising? Well, get a bunch of brand and agency executives in a room, and they’ll get super transparent about how opaque the digital ad market has become.

Strategizing for the Future

The Trade Desk's $689M revenue beat is blunted by the departure of CSO Jacobson to OpenAI

The DSP confirms the pending exit as PubMatic reports Q1 revenues of $62.6 million, capping off a bumper week of ad tech earnings.

PARTNER INSIGHTS FROM OPTABLE

Why publishers can’t afford to wait on agentic AI

The agentic era is here. But the nearly one-third of publishers who lack immediate investment plans risk falling behind.

See how it works

Member exclusive

Digiday+ Research: Marketers optimize GEO strategies amid the effects of zero-click search

While AI-generated search results are still relatively new compared to traditional search results, marketers are deeply feeling the effects.

PARTNER INSIGHTS FROM CONTENTFUL

How AI is impacting content marketing

According to a new survey from Contentful and Benchmarker, AI hasn’t replaced content outsourcing, but it is used most heavily in ideation, writing and editing.

The Creator Economy