Warner Bros Discovery is adding more agentic AI features to its advertising technology stack as it works to automate parts of campaign planning, buying, forecasting, and measurement.
The company gave advertisers and agencies an early view of the strategy during its upfront presentation last month. It has now provided more detail on how the technology will be used across linear television and digital advertising.
The system is designed to bring media planning and campaign execution into one environment. It also supports measurement for advertisers buying across WBD’s US linear and digital channels.
Linear and digital workflows
IAB Tech Lab has described the TV advertising ecosystem as fragmented across several environments. These include linear TV, addressable TV, connected TV, and ad-supported streaming environments. The group has also pointed to fragmentation across device types. IAB Tech Lab said this fragmentation affects delivery, measurement, and reconciliation.
WBD said its platform is intended to bring separate advertising workflows across its business units onto a single AWS-based system. The system supports planning, activation, optimisation, and monetisation.
Warner Bros Discovery builds around agentic AI
The company is using AI agents to support several parts of the ad-buying process. These include direct response advertising, commercial operations, and audience forecasting.
The same system also supports measurement and attribution. WBD said these capabilities are part of its wider update to advertising workflows.
Warner Bros Discovery said the platform includes autonomous AI agents for planning and dynamic forecasting. The agents also support real-time optimisation and closed-loop measurement. The company said the agents are designed to use campaign outcomes to adjust activity over time.
Forecasting, targeting, and measurement
WBD said its audience forecasting feature is being applied across its US linear and digital channels to estimate campaign reach across available inventory.
The system also supports flexible targeting across linear and digital inventory. Advertisers can target specific brands or audience segments, while WBD provides recommendations on inventory allocation.
WBD has said human teams will continue to oversee key decisions as the company adds more automated functions to the ad-buying process.
The platform is also intended to support newer ad formats, including interactive ads. WBD said advertisers will be able to use different formats across its inventory. The company also said the system can support more customised ad content for viewers.
IAB has said CTV measurement continues to face fragmented standards and inconsistent signal quality.
IAB Tech Lab has also listed audience interoperability, cross-environment frequency capping, auditable measurement, and normalised reconciliation of TV buys among its priorities for advanced TV advertising.
AWS underpins the system
The expanded system is being developed with support from Amazon Web Services. Warner Bros Discovery is using AWS services, including Amazon Bedrock AgentCore, Amazon SageMaker, and Amazon Quick, as part of the adtech update.
WBD said the platform is built around a composable data and interoperability layer. The layer gives AI agents access to real-time campaign context. The system also uses Amazon Bedrock, Amazon Simple Storage Service, and Amazon Elastic Container Service.
Amazon Bedrock AgentCore is being used to build and connect AI agents, while Amazon Bedrock hosts foundation models in a closed WBD instance. Amazon SageMaker supports custom model training under WBD’s data protection, segmentation, and security controls.
Amazon S3 stores data for the underlying data lake. Amazon Elastic Container Service supports application hosting, while Amazon Quick is used by WBD’s ad sales teams to interact with data through natural language.
The company said the AWS-supported system includes controls for data protection, segmentation, and security.
Warner Bros Discovery plans to introduce a unified media planning tool in the third quarter. A phased rollout of composable order management, pricing, and stewardship features is expected to follow in the fourth quarter.
Other agentic adtech launches
Fox also announced an agentic advertising platform this week, with partners including WPP, Horizon Media, and Comcast’s Universal Ads.
The announcements come ahead of the Cannes Lions conference, where AI is expected to be discussed by advertisers, agencies, publishers, and technology providers.
Advertising revenue declines
Warner Bros Discovery reported advertising revenue of $1.85 billion in the first quarter. That was down 7% from a year earlier on a reported basis.
The company attributed the decline to weaker linear advertising and the absence of NBA programming.
(Photo by Dmitry Kropachev)
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