Artificial intelligence is the ‘vibe check’ advertising has long needed

Imagine if your media plan could read the room – not just demographics or keywords, but the actual vibe of your brand. That’s not some futuristic fantasy. It’s the foundation of a smarter, more intuitive media ecosystem already taking shape.

As we enter the era of agentic advertising, which is transforming the industry, artificial intelligence is no longer just automating workflows or generating copy; it’s changing how, where, and why ads appear. For the first time, brands can unlock a level of strategic control once reserved for human planners, with AI capable of understanding tone, context, and cultural fit.

In short, this is the vibe check advertising has long needed.

Why it’s time to re-architect the adtech system

The programmatic system we’ve relied on for the past 15 years was built for speed and scale, not nuance. Constructed on layers of auctions, bidstreams, and disconnected vendors, it solved the problems of yesterday’s internet. We know this system intimately — our founder helped build it — and Scope3 was created to expose and address its unintended consequence of growing waste and inefficiency.

But it’s increasingly clear that the way advertising works now, doesn’t fit with the dynamic and changing internet experience that’s taking shape today.

Beyond the 30% of ad spend wasted (a staggering figure) and the emissions-heavy delivery, the system is misaligned with modern brand strategy. Not least because the consumer environment looks dramatically different than it did in the 2000s with social media and, more recently, generative AI. The reality is that in 2025, legacy advertising infrastructure is producing clunky decisioning and poor signal fidelity, with no room for accommodating the nuance that delivers optimal campaign performance.

It doesn’t have to be that way.

June Cheung

A smarter foundation

Rather than layering new tools onto outdated infrastructure, it’s time to re-architect the adtech system from the ground up, built with AI at its core and leveraging agentic AI capabilities across the ecosystem.

So, what do I mean by this?

Agentic AI is a form of artificial intelligence that doesn’t just respond to inputs but takes proactive, goal-oriented actions based on high-level instructions. Think of it as a shift from tool to teammate. It’s not just doing what it’s told, it’s interpreting brand strategy, reacting to dynamic environments, and optimising in real-time. Agentic AI represents a leap from generic optimisation to adaptive intelligence.

It’s a game changer for the adtech ecosystem. Eliminating stagnant taxonomies and hard-coded rules and instead using AI prompts to shape media buying, means brands can now create intelligent agents that operate in real-time. These agents aren’t just executing plans, they’re interpreting brand values, audience discovery, and platform dynamics to deliver smarter, more aligned results.

Think of it like briefing a media strategist who knows your brand inside and out, but one who never sleeps, continuously learns, and can make thousands of decisions per second. You’re constantly in the loop without having to do all the heaving lifting yourself.

From brand safety to brand synergy

Brand safety, suitability and targeting are the perfect first use cases for agentic AI. Traditionally, these efforts have relied on rigid keyword blocklists, inflexible taxonomies and outdated or broad categories; blunt tools that often miss the nuance of real-world contexts. Agentic systems, on the other hand, unlock a more sophisticated approach to brand suitability. That means every ad appears in environments that feel right, not just those that look right on a spreadsheet.

Consider the theoretical relaunch of Coca-Cola’s Share a Coke campaign. Traditional Gen Z targeting might lean on standard demographics or cookie-based tracking – tools that fall flat in today’s privacy-first, signal-fractured landscape. An agentic approach flips the script. A planner can brief the AI with a simple prompt: “I’m Coca-Cola, running a Share a Coke campaign. Can you recommend publishers that reach Gen Z?”

Instead of returning a predictable list, the agent is likely to surface culturally attuned, often under-the-radar content opportunities from publishers that legacy tools tend to omit. But it doesn’t stop there. It identifies content themes gaining real-time momentum— such as burnout, remote work, self-care—allowing the campaign to sync dynamically with Gen Z’s evolving interests and emotional tone.

The ‘Share a Coke’ campaign

Crucially, the campaign won’t fall victim to the kind of brand safety overreach that would block ads from running next to content from, for example, The White Lotus, the ratings juggernaut that includes themes of fictional death. The result? Greater reach for the brand, greater relevance for consumer audiences, and renewed revenue opportunities for quality publishers whose content is often wrongly sidelined by blocklists.

It’s a shift from avoiding harm to cultivating resonance.

Efficiency with integrity

Because agentic tools operate at the impression level, they have the potential to evaluate not only engagement and attention but also environmental impact and contextual suitability – provided the right signals are available. Brands can now filter out high-emission, low-value inventory at the source; no more guessing or retrofitting. Media plans become smarter, clearer, and more intentional.

Advertising doesn’t need more noise, it needs more meaning. Agentic AI offers us a way to move past the scale-at-all-costs mindset that defined the last era and into a future where intelligence, integrity, and impact are baked into every impression. The brands that thrive in this next chapter won’t be the loudest, they’ll be the ones who read the room best. And the vibe of the room is asking for something smarter, clearer, and far more intentional.

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