How technology is bringing evolving formats and strategies together to engage new audiences
Published: 12 Oct 2026
Author:
Elli Papadaki
Publishers are experimenting with new ways to reach audiences as attention becomes more fragmented. Video and audio are becoming more closely integrated into editorial strategies, while creator-led content is giving established publishers new ways to build relationships with their communities.
The advertising experience surrounding such content matters. An audience may land on a site for a particular piece of journalism or creator content, but the quality of the environment does not stop at the editorial experience. Advertising that feels poorly matched or disruptive can change how people perceive the overall experience. Conversely, relevant, well-crafted creative in the right context can complement and even enhance it.
That creates an interesting role for technology. Rather than treating audience engagement and advertising performance as separate problems, advanced programmatic systems are beginning to connect the signals that sit around an impression to deliver impactful editorial experiences.
There is far more information available at the point an ad is served than there was even a few years ago. Context can be assessed alongside placement characteristics, attention and ad density. Meanwhile, signals from creative engagement can provide another indication of how an audience is responding.
The challenge is making sense of those signals quickly enough for them to influence decisions while a campaign is running.
AI-powered programmatic is well suited to that task because it can process large volumes of information and identify relationships between signals that would be difficult to manage manually. This creates an opportunity to make media selection more responsive to what is actually happening around an impression, rather than relying entirely on broad assumptions made before a campaign begins.
Creative intelligence is becoming part of that picture too. A strong piece of creative can still struggle if the surrounding environment is a poor fit. Equally, high-quality media does not automatically produce a strong audience response if the advertising experience itself is weak.
Bringing those inputs closer together provides richer impressions that can drive better decisions. For publishers, that can help create a clearer connection between the quality of their environments and the value advertisers are able to find within them.
The next shift is happening in how these decisions are executed.
AI agents are beginning to move beyond individual tasks and into more connected workflows. In advertising, that could mean an agent helping to plan a campaign before moving into activation, monitoring performance and adjusting delivery as new information becomes available.
That does not mean handing over the entire campaign to an autonomous system. The more useful model is one where people define the objective, set the guidelines and decide how much autonomy an agent should have. The technology can then take over the repetitive, high-volume decisions that would otherwise require constant manual intervention.
The infrastructure connecting those systems is becoming important in its own right. The Model Context Protocol, or MCP, provides the connectivity layer that allows compatible AI agents to interact with external tools and data, giving them access to the capabilities they need to carry out more complex workflows. For advertising, that could make campaign capabilities available within the AI workflows that businesses are already building, rather than requiring users to move between separate platforms for every stage of a campaign.
Beyond efficiency improvements, this can make sophisticated advertising technology easier to access for smaller businesses and independent agencies that have historically faced a combination of technical complexity and resource constraints.
Accessibility matters because the open web still offers something that closed platforms cannot replicate in the same way: a diverse network of independent publishers and premium environments.
For SMEs, accessing that ecosystem has often required specialist knowledge of programmatic buying. Agentic workflows could reduce some of that operational burden, allowing businesses to use more sophisticated campaign capabilities without needing to build an entire technical operation around them.
For publishers, the opportunity is equally significant. If more advertisers can access premium open-web inventory through simpler workflows, there is greater potential for SMEs and independent agencies to participate in campaigns that might otherwise have been concentrated elsewhere, which will additionally drive competition for quality inventory.
That also puts greater emphasis on transparency. Automation should not make it harder to understand where spend is going or why particular inventory is being selected. As AI takes on more decision-making, advertisers need visibility into the signals informing those decisions, while publishers need confidence that the value of their environments can still be recognised.
The most useful development in this area is therefore not automation for its own sake. It is the ability to connect decisions more closely to what is happening in the real world, at every level from exposure to interaction and impact.
When media quality, creative engagement and campaign outcomes can inform each other during delivery, advertising becomes less dependent on static assumptions. When agentic AI can act on those signals within clear boundaries, the process becomes more responsive without removing human accountability.
For publishers exploring new ways to grow audiences, that distinction is critical. New formats can attract attention, but the wider experience determines whether that attention develops into a lasting relationship.
Technology cannot create that relationship by itself. It can, however, help publishers and advertisers make better use of the information available around every impression, while making the open web easier for more businesses to participate in. That is where the next generation of programmatic has the potential to make a meaningful difference.
