"It was essentially trading the way a trafficker would, but automated. It looked at insertion orders (IOs) that came in [from brands and media buyers], it set up the campaigns, it set the campaigns live, and it started optimizing them. We were like: "This is amazing!" Well, for about a day. It spent a few thousand dollars in one go. And then we got scared."
"What if it accidentally added a zero? What if it makes a mistake overnight or over a weekend? We'd be out of business. So, we ran it for two days, then shut it down. We said [to ourselves], we're gonna just keep it human, trading on platforms and the DSPs and buying through SSPs, because it felt safer to us at that time. But it works - you can do it."
Companies across the media industry are building AI agents intended to automate tasks like media buying, campaign setup, and optimization. An ad-tech team created an agent that read insertion orders, set campaigns live, and performed optimization similarly to a trafficker. The agent used GPT-4 and was developed in a few days thanks to existing AI tooling. In a short live test the agent spent several thousand dollars overnight, prompting fears about errors such as adding an extra zero. The team halted the pilot after two days, prioritizing human control to avoid costly misuse. The industry expects potential cost savings, added value, and greater publisher control, but widespread adoption will take time and entail risks.
Read at Digiday
Unable to calculate read time
Collection
[
|
...
]