But expecting publishers to build and maintain their own autonomous AI agents for selling ad inventory is a stretch. AdCP, which launched in October, has emerged as an early standard to help these AI agents communicate. AAO handing development of the sell-side AI agent to Prebid is about making it open-source and more broadly available, McGrath said. So far, AI agents have been limited to handling direct and programmatic guaranteed deals. But Prebid’s header bidding expertise will most likely encourage development that would bring AdCP’s agentic AI into the open auction, according to McGrath.