PubMatic & Untapped Growth: AI Agents to Reshape Programmatic Buying
PubMatic has launched a new operating system, AgenticOS, designed to automate programmatic advertising execution, signaling a potential shift in how media campaigns are planned, bought, and optimized. The move, announced January 5, 2026, aims to streamline a process often criticized for its complexity and fragmentation, and is being rolled out in partnership with Untapped Growth, a collective of 20 independent agencies.
AgenticOS, built in collaboration with NVIDIA, utilizes a network of AI agents to handle tasks traditionally performed manually by media buyers, including audience discovery and campaign execution. Harry Tong, director of sales engineering at PubMatic, described the system as a replacement for the “sub-optimal” process of navigating multiple user interfaces and manually configuring campaigns. “Historically, buyers have logged into multiple different UIs and clicking boxes,” Tong said. “AgenticOS replaces that manual labor and instead packages those core functions into an application where each step of the media buying process…is handled by its own dedicated bot.”
The partnership with Untapped Growth allows independent agencies using AgenticOS to automatically access pre-negotiated commercial terms, providing them with buying power typically reserved for larger organizations. Brendan Clifford, co-founder and managing partner at Untapped Growth, explained that the system allows agencies to input a media plan into a large language model (LLM) – such as Claude – and execute transactions directly with supply-side platforms, bypassing traditional demand-side platforms (DSPs). This, Clifford said, reduces both “tech tax and the operating tax” associated with using a DSP.
PubMatic asserts that AgenticOS is already delivering significant efficiency gains. According to the company, one agency testing the system experienced an 82% reduction in buy-side costs and a nearly 90% reduction in campaign setup time. The launch comes as buyers express increasing frustration with the complexities of the programmatic ecosystem, according to Tong. “Buyers have become quite frustrated in the way that they have to interact with the programmatic ecosystem…There’s so much fragmentation and human led orchestration that they have to deal with on a day to day basis,” he said.
The development also reflects a broader industry trend toward agentic AI, as highlighted by Adweek. PubMatic’s AgenticOS is intended to collapse the traditional programmatic supply chain, where buyers interact with DSPs, which then connect to SSPs and publishers. Tong stated that the distinctions between these platforms are becoming “obsolete.”
PubMatic is expanding its leadership team to support the growth and adoption of AgenticOS, with a focus on premium connected TV (CTV), mobile apps, and omnichannel environments. Two agencies within Untapped Growth are scheduled to begin using the system shortly, with additional agencies expected to follow. The system provides access to premium CTV inventory from publishers including Roku and A&E Networks, with campaign optimization powered by tvScientific AI, according to Untapped Growth.