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Diving overview:
- According to a press release shared with Marketing Dive, Warner Bros. Discovery is upgrading its ad tech stack with enhanced agent artificial intelligence capabilities supported by cloud computing partner Amazon Web Services.
- Traditional siled internal workflows will transition to a more automated, data-driven approach billed by HBO Max owners. AI agents are used for media planning, dynamic forecasting, real-time campaign optimization, and closed-loop measurement.
- By streamlining the ad buying experience into a unified AI platform that spans both linear TV and digital, we aim to help advertisers better align their spend across WBD properties and more easily take advantage of a variety of new ad formats.
Dive Insight:
Last month, WBD featured agent AI as a key part of its pre-proposal to advertisers and agencies, and is now providing a clearer view of its plans to automate more important aspects of the ad buying process. The news comes amid a flurry of announcements about ad buying by agents ahead of next week’s Cannes Lions conference, a major conference for advertisers where AI is expected to be a focus of discussion.
While it’s still too early to tell the full extent to which agent AI will meaningfully reshape advertising, platforms and publishers are scrambling to adopt solutions that will put them at the technology’s critical forefront. Broadcaster Fox earlier this week claimed it was launching its first end-to-end agent platform for advertising, with support from partners including WPP, Horizon Media and Comcast’s Universal Ads.
WBD’s Agent Pivot is positioned as a way to make life easier for advertisers, bringing together linear and digital buying under one roof, giving them greater flexibility in how they plan, target and measure their campaigns. The release states that the AI agent can “continuously self-optimize,” which means, at least in theory, that it can learn over time and ultimately deliver better results. WBD has previously assured advertisers that humans will continue to make key decisions, claiming that the improved backend experience will benefit viewers by delivering more personalized and contextually relevant ads.
WBD is rolling out more agent capabilities this year, including direct response advertising, commercial workflows, advanced audience prediction, measurement, and attribution. In the third quarter, the company plans to introduce integrated media planning tools, followed by AI-powered configurable order management, pricing and administration capabilities.
One of the key benefits for WBD is our partnership with AWS, which is increasing support for agents to overhaul ad technology. WBD leverages services such as Amazon Bedrock AgentCore, Amazon SageMaker, and Amazon Quick to ensure that its AI investments deliver the promised sophistication and maintain data protection and security.
WBD’s advertising business decreased 7% year-over-year to $1.85 billion in the first quarter on a reported basis, with the weakness likely due to linear declines and a lack of NBA programming. Looming over WBD is a planned mega-merger with rival studio Paramount, which recently received approval to move forward from the Department of Justice. The deal will likely mean further changes to how WBD handles advertising.
