This article is part of a series covering our Programmatic Marketing Summit. More from the series →Agentic ad buying isn’t coming soon; it’s already here. And it was the dominant theme at the May 2026 edition of the Digiday Programmatic Marketing Summit, held May 6 to 8 in Palm Springs, Calif.Executives from brands including Duluth Trading Company and agencies such as Butler/Till discussed how they’re already using AI agents to buy ads. During behind-closed-door town hall sessions, programmatic marketers shared how they are incorporating AI agents into other parts of their programmatic workflows, such as quality assurance processes. And all attendees got some hands-on experience with agentic ad buying via a live game show that had them compete in teams to use AI agents to win an ad deal.
But just as important as how marketers are adopting agentic AI are the rules and guardrails they are putting in place around their AI use, which was a major topic of conversation on and off stage.
DPMS May 2026 state of the industry
Each Digiday event kicks off with the edit team breaking down current industry themes. Here’s where we think we are:
AI agents are participating in programmatic ad buys.
