The upfront marketplace has long been built on relationships and negotiation. Now, automation and AI are changing how deals get done.

How automation and AI are rewriting the upfront marketplace

The Digiday Podcast

Hello, hello, and welcome to another episode of The Digiday Podcast, a show for anyone wondering when AI bots are going to start leading upfront negotiations. I'm Kamiko McCoy, Senior Marketing Reporter here at Digiday. And I'm Tim Peterson, Executive Editor of Video and Audio, Digiday Media. Kamiko, when do you think Claude, ChatGPT, Gemini are going to be handling upfront negotiations?

I think they're already pretty deeply involved in the process as far as handling and that last, where we've talked about before, like that last 10%, right? I don't know, maybe this time next year, where are your bets at? Leading the gut negotiations, I think never if buyers and sellers are smart and want to keep their job.

That being said, for all I know, the chief investment officers at agencies, chief ad sales officers at TV networks and streamers may be like surreptitiously having Claude, ChatGPT. So, maybe like a kitchen cabinet of AI agents involved, but I want to bring in our media buying expert, our senior media buying editor, Michael Berge, who's joining us to talk about this.

Michael, when do you think AI agents are going to be leading upfront negotiations? Hi, guys. Thanks for having me here. I think it's going to be a couple of years. It does feel like it's rolling in really, really fast, but I do think there's kind of more kind of smoke than actual fire when there comes to this. There's a lot of talk of, you know, bots being kind of incorporated.

But, you know, I look at the holding companies, the agency holding companies, and they're still kind of developing their systems. And I just, I don't see it taking root in any significant way for at least another two years.

How automation and AI are rewriting the upfront marketplace

Read the full transcript

The candid version is on a podcast,
not the earnings call.

How automation and AI are rewriting the upfront marketplace

Read the full transcript

The candid version is on a podcast, not the earnings call.

The candid version is on a podcast,
not the earnings call.