CES 2026 wrapped: AI agents execute ad buys, platforms chase outcomes and vertical video arrives

The advertising industry spent CES 2026 promising to automate itself out of existence, or at least out of the tedious parts.

While AI agents negotiated media buys without human intervention and platforms rebuilt interfaces to solve the discovery problem they created, traditional media companies quietly acknowledged that TikTok won the format war by announcing their own vertical video strategies.

Is 2026 the year agentic AI moves from theory to operations in media production?

The message: streaming’s infrastructure is mature enough to optimize itself, but viewers still can’t find anything to watch.

Autonomous systems handle cross-platform ad buying

NBCUniversal, RPA, FreeWheel and Newton Research demonstrated what they described as the first cross-platform premium video media buy powered by agentic AI. The system executes and optimizes investments across linear and digital platforms in real time, including live sports inventory.

The first campaign will run in the first quarter of 2026 with placements during live football playoff games. AI agents developed by Newton handle the buy side while NBCUniversal and FreeWheel agents manage the sell side, using the Model Context Protocol for interoperability.

“This partnership illustrates the potential of agentic AI to hyper-streamline strategic media intelligence and transactions in service of business outcomes,” said Jim Helberg, chief executive of RPA.

PubMatic launched AgenticOS, an operating system that enables autonomous advertising execution using natural language input. An early deployment in December 2025 with Butler/Till and Geloso Beverage Group’s Clubtails showed campaign setup time reduced by 87 percent and issue resolution by 70 percent.

The platform runs on NVIDIA-accelerated computing and uses Claude, an AI interface, to select tactics, execute media buys and adjust performance metrics within set parameters.

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Both systems attempt to automate processes that currently require manual planning and execution, particularly for complex buys involving multiple platforms.

Magnite introduced what it described as its first “seller agent,” an AI designed to communicate with buyer agents developed by agencies. The company has been testing AdCP as the primary protocol for these interactions. The seller agent is integrated into Magnite’s SpringServe platform, providing access to publisher inventory across web and connected TV.

Yahoo pitched what it called a “yours, mine and ours” model at CES. Through the Model Context Protocol, agencies can bring external agents into the Yahoo DSP. Buyers can also use Yahoo’s native agents to troubleshoot campaigns or analyze audience targeting. The approach suggests that interoperability between different AI systems may become a competitive differentiator as agencies and platforms develop their own agent technologies.

Discovery remains a problem as platforms redesign interfaces

Amazon cited Gracenote research showing U.S. viewers now spend an average of 12 minutes looking for something to watch, up from 10.5 minutes in 2023. The increase suggests that more content and more services have made the problem worse, not better.

The company redesigned Fire TV’s interface with updated layouts and rebuilt code that improved performance by 20 to 30 percent. Users can now pin up to 20 apps to the home screen, up from six. Alexa+ enables users to describe scenes to jump to specific movie moments or request content based on actors, genres or themes.

TiVo Platform Technologies added a Partner Picks Carousel for publisher recommendations and improved voice search supporting multiple languages.

Data from Parks Associates showed 61 percent of U.S. internet households now use a smart TV as their primary streaming device. Samsung’s Tizen operating system leads with 34 percent of smart TV owners, but the market remains fragmented across Roku, LG and Vizio.

“Smart TVs are the default way consumers access video, and so the OS has become the central point of competition,” said Jennifer Kent, senior vice president and principal analyst at Parks Associates.

The persistence of the discovery problem despite years of interface redesigns suggests the issue is structural rather than technical. More apps, more services and more content create complexity that better search tools can’t entirely resolve.

Platforms emphasize outcome measurement and optimization

Roku expanded its partnership with iSpot to become the first major streaming publisher using iSpot’s Outcomes at Scale product for campaign optimization based on attributed business results. 

Samsung Ads announced deeper integration between its Data+ offering and Snowflake Data Clean Rooms, enabling advertisers to match first-party data with Samsung’s audiences in a privacy-compliant way.

Viant introduced Outcomes, powered by its AI Lattice Brain, which autonomously manages campaign execution from setup to real-time optimization. Advertisers specify desired business results and the platform evaluates multiple data signals simultaneously, including household IDs, supply quality scoring, historical campaign performance and real-time delivery data.

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The emphasis on outcomes reflects pressure on connected TV platforms to demonstrate value beyond reach and awareness metrics as advertisers demand proof that streaming drives sales, not just views.

Vertical video and creator content enter traditional platforms

Disney+ plans to introduce vertical video content later in 2026, building on its previous integration of the format into the ESPN app. The company described the feature as a “personalized and dynamic feed” that may include original short-form content, repurposed social media clips and adapted scenes from existing films and series.

Fox Entertainment launched Fox Creator Studios, a digital-first division partnering with content creators to develop formats and intellectual property. The studio begins with food content featuring Gordon Ramsay, Rosanna Pansino and creators including Jolly, Sorted Food, Food Theorists and Little Remy Food.

Fox Advertising also announced Creators@Fox, an initiative for branded content opportunities across Fox’s entertainment, news, sports and streaming divisions.

The announcements are a bit of a concession that traditional media companies cannot ignore the formats and talent that built audiences on YouTube, TikTok and Instagram. Whether vertical video works on television interfaces designed for horizontal content, and whether established media companies can compete with platforms optimized for creator economics, remain open questions.

The through line at CES 2026 was clear: the industry is optimizing for advertisers while viewers still can’t find anything to watch.

AI agents can now execute complex cross-platform buys in milliseconds and attribute individual conversions to specific ad exposures, but viewers spend 12 minutes searching for content, up from 10.5 minutes two years ago. 

The emphasis on outcome measurement raises new questions for connected TV: if the channel can’t prove it drives sales at scale, advertisers will shift budgets to channels that can. The automation of complex processes will reshape employment in media planning and buying, though whether savings accrue to advertisers or platform margins remains an open question.

Vertical video and creator announcements, meanwhile, are an acknowledgment that media companies misjudged audience preferences and now face the challenge of competing on platforms and economics built for others.

The industry is solving for advertiser ROI, but overall viewer experience is still deteriorating amid fragmentation, creating a misalignment of incentives that better search tools won’t fix.

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