As automation and AI-powered tools continue to make their way into the U.S. digital advertising marketplace and processes, the IAB Tech Lab has formed a new industry working group to establish shared governance, defined standards and support greater transparency so that advertisers and publishers can adopt and utilize complex programmatic ad systems with more confidence.
Dubbed the Programmatic Governance Council, the body brings to gether media buyers, owners and ad tech platforms to coalesce and help shape concrete outputs around programmatic trading and transaction signals, with an aim of creating alignment across different stakeholders and improved transparency, trust and consistency.
Initial participants include Dentsu, Omnicom Media Group, WPP, Disney, Magnite, PubMatic, Hearst, News Corp, Yahoo, Amazon Ads, The Trade Desk, Raptive, and Mediavine, among others.
"Programmatic advertising moves billions of dollars every day, but too often the people responsible for it are not sitting together to deal with the real operational problems," said Anthony Katsur, CEO of IAB Tech Lab, in a statement. "Programmatic grew incredibly fast, but the governance around how that market should operate hasn't kept pace with its scale, complexity, and automation. If we don't generate alignment quickly, we risk cementing these inefficiencies into the fabric of every transaction."
Per IAB, more than $200 billion in U.S. digital advertising is now traded programmatically.
When it comes to TV advertising specifically, a recent CIMM panel noted roughly one-third of the ~$90 billion U.S. TV ad spend (across traditional linear and TV) in 2025 was transacted programmatically – with IP-inherent and digital-native CTV representing the large majority. On the same panel, leaders from Disney, Google and Dish all cited expectations for growth in programmatic by 2030 – and upticks for “automated” advertising transactions more broadly in different forms, as consumers, devices, and ad inventory continue to migrate to CTV and new ad tech, including AI, is integrated into systems.
Still, it’s not all easy or clear-cut.
In announcing the council, IAB Tech Lab said that “programmatic advertising has long been described as complex and opaque.” The standards-setting industry body pointed to factors like fragmented infrastructure, inconsistency across practices and differences in programmatic signal handling and auction mechanics that can create confusion and friction in the market.
The council intends to deliver a formal charter and workstreams, followed by an initial governance framework and recommendations that connect business expectations to the technical infrastructure of programmatic trading.
Per the announcement, the goal over the next 6-12 months is to provide clearer guidance on auction transparency, more consistent handling of transaction signals, and stronger alignment between buyers, sellers, and platforms on what trustworthy programmatic execution should look like,” in order to help buyers more confidently put more ad spend in the programmatic supply chain as they’re able to see clear value.
More transparency and consistency for programmatic – particularly as AI and automation make their way into various systems and workflows – could be welcome.
As Matt Clark, VP of Strategy & Partnerships at the Comcast-owned SSP explained at an industry event earlier this month – adoption of programmatic by major advertisers vary widely, where, for example, No. 1 may only be 5% programmatic while No. 2 is transacting 80% of ad deals programmatically.
For programmatic growth to be realized, the question Clark said the industry then needs to ask, “is what has to become true for the 5% advertiser?” Who, while large and sophisticated advertisers, through their actions so far are sending signals “that they’re not sold at all on the price and complexity of transacting this way.”
And separately, Omnicom exec Ben Hovaness attested to the complexity of the current programmatic supply chain in a statement endorsing the IAB Tech Lab’s new council.
"The scale of programmatic means agencies are responsible for navigating a massive supply chain on behalf of advertisers," said Hovaness, Chief Media Officer at Omnicom Media Group, in a statement. "Our clients expect clarity about where their money goes and how media is actually traded. Sitting down with publishers and platforms to work through these issues together is how you move from talking about transparency to actually creating it."
With more inventory becoming available programmatically in the age of ad-supported streaming and CTV, programmatic avenues are also being used to tap new types of CTV inventory.
Announced Wednesday, Nexxen DSP said independent agency H/L is the first to programmatically activate native smart TV home screen inventory through its new offering, Nexxen TV Home Screen using private marketplace (PMP) deals and the Nexxen DSP.