"AI agents have infiltrated retail media. At least, that's how it felt to big Wall Street advertising and tech investors, who brought a sense of existential dread to Criteo's quarterly earnings call on Wednesday. The concern among investors is that the open web is doomed - stick a fork in it; the thing is done - and that retail media vendors are only slightly less doomed as human buyers shift to agentic AI channels."
"Criteo has always been the crucible of programmatic, for better or worse, a proxy of sorts in the minds of investors for third-party ad tech companies affected by Apple's iOS updates, for example, and Chrome's dizzying third-party cookie changes. Now, Criteo is the emblem for whether third-party programmatic vendors will be important integrations partners for both agentic AI products and walled garden/social media platforms."
"Unfortunately, the only clear and apparent fact in this debate about how ad tech will fit into the agentic AI revolution is that nobody has any idea, not even the most heavily invested stakeholders. The agentic revolution Criteo is an interesting lens for this debate, which is long on speculation and not grounded in reality. The terms 'agentic AI' or 'AI agents' came up two dozen times during Criteo's earnings call, but there were just five mentions of 'agency' or 'agencies,' all from the Criteo execs in their prepared remarks."
Investors expressed existential concern that agentic AI could shift product discovery and transactions off the open web and into agent-driven or walled-garden channels, undermining retail media. Criteo functioned as a proxy for third-party programmatic vendors exposed by platform shifts such as Apple's iOS updates and Chrome cookie changes. The debate centered on whether programmatic vendors will become integration partners for agentic AI or be bypassed as buyers transact within agents. Executives discussed integrations but uncertainty remained. The term 'agentic AI' dominated the call while explicit references to 'agency' or 'agencies' were scarce, highlighting ambiguity about future roles for ad tech.
Read at AdExchanger
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