IAB Tech Lab Targets Manual Ad Buying with New Agentic Standard

For years, the digital advertising supply chain has relied on automated execution, yet the initial phase—moving from a request for proposal to a commitment—remained stubbornly manual. AAMP 3.0 seeks to bridge this divide by enabling buyer and seller agents to exchange and compare proposals using a standardized format. This allows publishers to represent their inventory in a way that AI models can ingest, rank, and qualify against specific media briefs at a scale impossible for human planners alone.

OpenProposal integrates with existing industry standards like AdCOM and the Deals API, ensuring that the transition from planning to execution remains seamless. The specification is currently open for public comment until October 22, 2026. During this period, the IAB Tech Lab is integrating the protocol into its reference SDKs to help firms build guardrails for pricing, authorization, and transaction integrity. Industry leaders from WPP Media and PMG have signaled support, noting that the update allows for richer context—such as audience rationale—to travel alongside price data, directly feeding the reasoning capabilities of planning AI.