Ad Context Protocol

The Ad Context Protocol (AdCP) is built on a set of core components that empower AI agents to operate seamlessly across the modern advertising ecosystem. At its heart, AdCP introduces a unified interface that standardizes how agents communicate, plan, and execute media campaigns on multiple platforms, eliminating the friction of siloed systems and opaque intermediary layers.

Central to this framework is the Signals Activation Protocol, which allows AI agents to discover and activate contextual signals in real time. This protocol ensures that agents can find the most relevant audience signals and contextual data, enabling precise targeting and audience activation that aligns with campaign objectives. By leveraging these contextual signals, agents can optimize media buying decisions and deliver ads in environments that match brand requirements.

The Curation Protocol is another foundational element, enabling agents to curate media inventory based on context, brand safety, and suitability preferences. This protocol allows for the dynamic assembly of inventory packages that meet specific campaign needs, supporting both premium and niche audience segments—whether targeting eco conscious car buyers or premium sports enthusiasts. It also enhances transparency by allowing publisher and platform agents to describe inventory in a way that AI systems can interpret and trust.

Finally, the Media Buy Protocol streamlines the execution and optimization of media buys across the advertising industry. This protocol supports programmatic automation, allowing buyer agents and seller agents to negotiate and transact directly, with clear, transparent deal parameters. It enables agent-to-agent communication for campaign execution, from discovering inventory to executing media buys, all while maintaining machine transparency and accountability.

Together, these protocols form the backbone of the Ad Context Protocol, enabling AI agents to plan, negotiate, and execute media campaigns efficiently. By establishing a shared technical infrastructure and a common context protocol, AdCP is setting a new standard for advertising technology, making it possible for agents to operate in the same language and drive innovation across ad tech platforms.

The standard defines a format for encoding and communicating campaign metadata throughout the transaction workflow. This can include goals, creative rules, desired content environments, bid strategy, measurement expectations, and contextual signals that help determine brand suitability. It creates a two way dialogue between supply and demand. The protocol enables direct communication between buyer and publisher agents, streamlining campaign planning and negotiation. Buyers can request specific types of meaning, while publishers can describe each opportunity with greater clarity than traditional page classification allows. AdCP also integrates with a publisher’s ad server to facilitate transparent and auditable transactions within the publisher’s existing infrastructure. Additionally, a publisher’s agent can provide detailed inventory metrics, such as attention scores and carbon footprints, enabling smarter, value-based buying decisions.

The protocol is designed to work alongside existing programmatic infrastructure. OpenRTB handles auction and transaction information. Prebid focuses on unified bidding and partner competition. The Ad Context Protocol complements these standards by adding campaign intent and semantic understanding at the planning layer. Interoperability is a key benefit; identity interoperability is especially important for ensuring transparency, auditability, and data provenance in direct ad transactions and agent interactions. The protocol also helps establish shared technical infrastructure across the advertising ecosystem, reducing fragmentation and increasing workflow efficiency. When used together, these standards support a more efficient and intelligent supply chain without requiring fundamental system replacement.

The Ad Context Protocol opens the door to new forms of automation that traditionally require human oversight. Potential capabilities include:

• Explaining why a placement is recommended based on brand intent
• Automatically refining targeting as new learning becomes available
• Enforcing suitability rules for creative and context at scale
• Allowing publishers to communicate meaning beyond taxonomy alone
• Predicting performance outcomes before impressions are purchased
• Making ongoing planning adjustments without manual input
• Providing transparent reasoning behind decision making
• Enabling a transition away from auctioning individual impressions toward more flexible transaction models, such as audience segments or engagement-based buying

The protocol supports both traditional transactions based on individual impressions and more advanced, audience-based or outcome-focused exchanges, offering greater flexibility and efficiency in media buying.

These use cases demonstrate how intelligent agents can remain aligned with objectives, values, and brand integrity while increasing the speed and intelligence of programmatic buying.

Challenges and adoption considerations

The Ad Context Protocol is still in early rollout. For widespread implementation, platforms and publishers must commit to generating and consuming consistent metadata. Industry alignment, testing, and governance will remain essential as the standard matures. As publisher content understanding improves and agentic buying scales, real world feedback will shape further enhancements to the specification.