IAB Europe: 58% expect agentic ad buying at scale within a year. Only 48% have AI rules

IAB Europe published its 2026 report on artificial intelligence in advertising on 24 September. Well over half of the people it asked, 58 percent, think buying run by AI agents will be in real use or at scale inside a year. Only 48 percent have written rules for how AI may be used in advertising.

Dimitris Beis says ambition runs ahead of practice

Agentic buying means software that plans and places media on its own, rather than waiting for a person to click. Dimitris Beis of IAB Europe said interest and investment are strong, but that “ambition remains ahead of practice” in agentic trading. Digiday, which also covered the study, reported around 50 executives took part.

Large firms are further along: 86 percent against 48 percent

Company size splits the field. Among organisations with more than 500 staff, 86 percent run agentic systems at level two or higher, which means people and software work side by side. At smaller firms the figure is 48 percent. Digiday quoted Ian Maxwell of Converge Digital, who said such buying “automates a few small parts of a huge process”.

Rules lag behind use: 78 percent named an owner, 48 percent wrote guidance

Use itself is settled. Some 86 percent apply AI to marketing work and 72 percent spend more on it this year than last, while 59 percent are raising budgets for AI marketing tools. Governance is thinner. Three quarters, 78 percent, have named someone to own AI rules, but fewer than half wrote guidance for advertising. Another 62 percent said industry guidelines would help. That gap also showed up in the BVDW survey of German media agencies.

Buyers rate their own AI work at 2.76 out of 5

Security came first among concerns and privacy second. Asked how they judge AI, 69 percent pointed to saved time and effort rather than sales. Respondents rated their own AI performance at 2.76 out of 5. Sonia Carreno, who takes over as IAB Europe chief executive next quarter, inherits that guidance request. Tools keep arriving in the meantime, among them DoubleVerify’s Ask Neura.

Two numbers frame the spending case. Seventy-two percent raised AI budgets this year, and the average score those same buyers gave their results was 2.76 out of 5. A budget line growing faster than the score it buys is worth a second look before the 2027 plan is signed off.