Anthropic, Block, OpenAI, and other leading artificial intelligence (AI) companies have joined forces to establish the Agentic AI Foundation (AAIF), aimed at fostering an open and collaborative environment for agentic AI tools tailored for advertisers and marketers. Officially launched recently, the AAIF seeks to provide a “vendor-neutral home for open-source agentic AI projects,” ensuring that no single organization dominates the landscape while also offering funding for community initiatives and research, including necessary protocols.
Block has contributed its open-source agent, known as goose, to the foundation, alongside Anthropic‘s Model Context Protocol (MCP) and OpenAI‘s AGENTS.md. Major backers of this initiative include technology giants such as Amazon Web Services (AWS), Google, Microsoft, Bloomberg, and Cloudflare. Other notable participants comprise IBM, Salesforce, Cisco, and Hugging Face.
While Integral Ad Science (IAS) is not officially affiliated with the AAIF, the company has announced its own AI-driven tool, the IAS Agent. Designed to assist professionals in the advertising sector, this new assistant aims to expedite campaign activations while delivering in-depth insights and real-time performance optimization. IAS plans to unveil the agent at CES 2026 and expects a global rollout at no additional cost in early Q1 2026.
In a recent report, IAS indicated that media experts are gradually recognizing the potential of AI, albeit with caution. The report highlights a transformative shift in brand strategies, focusing on the evolution of digital video and social media to enhance performance metrics. This evolution is part of the broader context that prompted the formation of the AAIF.
“2026 marks a turning point in digital advertising,” stated IAS CEO Lisa Utzschneider. “As the boundaries between channels blur — and AI reshapes how content is created, consumed, and measured — industry experts are redefining what quality means in this new era.”
The IAS study revealed that 61% of advertising and marketing professionals express enthusiasm for AI’s advancements in digital media, recognizing the opportunities it creates for advertising within generative AI content. Furthermore, 86% of advertisers indicated a pressing need to identify, classify, target, and avoid AI-generated content on digital video platforms. In addition, 83% emphasized the importance of measuring ad fraud, viewability, and suitability to enhance performance outcomes in retail media networks.
Concerns about ad fraud and brand suitability are prevalent, with 83% of advertisers identifying these issues as major challenges as the volume of connected TV (CTV) inventory increases. The IAS report also highlighted that 69% of advertisers view ad-content adjacency as a significant digital media hurdle, with ad fraud and performance measurement rounding out their top three concerns.
The formation of the AAIF underscores a growing recognition within the advertising and marketing communities of the need for a cohesive framework to manage the complexities introduced by AI technologies. As AI continues to influence how content is developed and assessed, the industry is poised for substantial changes that may redefine advertising norms in the near future.
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