Marketecture Podcast Episode 160 Summary

Guest: Matt Egol (JourneySpark, AgenticAdvertising.org)
Host(s): Ari Paparo, Eric Franchi
Date: Feb 13, 2026
Main Theme: Why the advertising and marketing industries need an AI-specific industry association—what AgenticAdvertising.org is, how it’s different, and why open, multi-stakeholder governance is critical in the age of autonomous agents.

Episode Overview

This episode features a deep dive into the rapid emergence of AI in digital advertising, centering on the launch and purpose of AgenticAdvertising.org (AAO), a new industry association for the development and governance of agentic advertising standards (especially the ADCP protocol). Hosts Ari Paparo and Eric Franchi are joined by Matt Egol, co-founder of both JourneySpark and AAO, to discuss:

• Why an AI-focused association is needed (instead of relying solely on trade orgs like IAB or ANA)
• The difference between traditional and new approaches to industry standards and professional certification
• The current state of “agentic” (AI-powered) advertising, test campaigns, and ecosystem collaborations (e.g., with PreBid, major agencies, and brands)
• Debates and “beef” with existing trade bodies, and why “capture” and neutrality matter
• Super Bowl 2026’s status as the “AI Super Bowl” and what it reflects about industry sentiment and public perception

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Matt Egol’s Career & Evolution of Media (05:06–07:48)

• Matt traces his consulting roots (Booz Allen, Booz Digital) and highlights the shift in advertising from media buys to experience-building.
• “Brands are publishers.” Media has become fundamentally data-driven, and customer experience now fully integrates advertising and technology.

“We’ve seen brands move from buying ads to building experiences. Advertising is still really important, but brands are investing heavily in how advertising connects with customer experience… So that’s been a fun ride for me.”
— Matt Egol (05:39)

2. What is AgenticAdvertising.org (AAO) and Why Does It Exist? (08:13–10:53)

• AAO’s Mission: Not a classic trade group, but a professional association for all “builders”—brands, agencies, publishers, tech.
• Focused on open standards, education, professional certification.
• Modeled after IEEE or IAPP in privacy: less about buyers vs sellers; more about advancing practice and competence.
• Growing from open-source roots; aiming for ANSI-style accreditations for individuals and companies.

“AO is a community of builders… focused on the development and adoption of open standards, education and professional certification. Unlike trade groups like the ANA or FORA that represent buyers and sellers, AO is modeled more after the IEEE… its goal is to advance the discipline.”
— Matt Egol (08:13)

• Certification will be dual: companies and individuals—building trust and claims validation.

“We see dual certification because we're trying to build trust, Ari. And the trust needs to be both of people and of the claims of the organizations.”
— Matt Egol (10:53)

3. AAO vs. Other Industry Groups: Collaboration, Not Competition (11:49–14:49)

• There are 3,000+ media nonprofits, but AAO is distinct because it’s neither buy-side- nor sell-side-captured.
• Collaboration with PreBid cited as the model: PreBid takes over code management, AAO focuses on standards/protocols, education, and interoperability among all actors.
• AAO’s activity is across the value chain, not just “programmatic plus.” It’s a broader, “nervous system” layer above RTB.

“Most of the early activity and value of Agentic is actually in discovery and planning… Agentic and ADCP is more like the nervous system that sits above [RTB].”
— Matt Egol quoting Ben Massey (14:09)

4. How Code and Standards Are Managed (15:20–17:13)

• PreBid manages sales agent code repos; AAO retains protocol/standards governance.
• Buy-side code and future agents are open for further partnerships.
• Multiple types of agents envisioned: shopper agents, creative bots, data-signal agents, highlighting the breadth of AI’s domain.

5. Collaboration & Rationale for AAO’s Independence (19:22–21:44)

• Friction/“beef” with IAB: Not adversarial, but AAO is meant to be a neutral, participant-governed body avoiding “capture” and representing more of the ecosystem.

“Avoid the perception of capture, openness, a broader set of participants driving the standards… not saying IAB is captured, but we want [AAO]… to be not representing sellers.”
— Matt Egol (21:07)

• Key distinction: IAB and ANA are still vital collaborators, but AAO’s membership and mission are broader.

6. Current State of Agentic Advertising Adoption (22:53–24:58)

• Still in early days: only one quarter into the adoption cycle.
• Thin but growing tests: buy-side, sell-side, key players (PubMatic, Triton, Scope3, Yahoo, soon Salesforce).
• Major holding companies and brands signing on; experimentation is accelerating but volume is not yet significant.

7. AAO Governance Model (25:10–26:14)

• Upcoming board: equal split among brand, publisher, agency, and tech, with one company = one vote, regardless of size.
• Only individuals—not bots—will be involved with professional certification.

“We're looking at around 40 to 50 board members split equally across brand, publisher, agency and tech… If you have a thousand subsidiaries or one, you're one vote.”
— Matt Egol (25:10)

8. Industry Sentiment: The “AI Super Bowl” (28:04–34:29)

• Super Bowl 2026 marked by nine explicit AI company ads; 15/66 ads featured AI in some way (23% of total).
• Pandora’s box dynamic: the normie public is deeply uneasy or suspicious (“crypto Super Bowl” callback).

“AI has a really bad PR image right now. The normies do not like AI. The people like us are obsessed with it, and the normies hate it.”
— Ari Paparo (29:50)

• Discussion of most/least effective ads (Gemini for impact, Anthropics’ more “meh”), and branded approaches.

9. What Will LLM Ads Really Look Like? (36:38–42:38)

• Ads launching on ChatGPT, major agencies participating—but if anything, public and ex-employee criticism is escalating.
• Matt sees this as a new “moment of truth” for digital experiences: “not just automating what we do today,” but reimagining the customer journey.
• The future of ads: much more “native” to user intent, and richer, emotional, and image-driven—if not, we risk missing the 95% of persuasive power that’s non-textual.

“The brain works that way. AI is increasingly about images as opposed to language. There's actually a risk here that if we focus so much on text analytics… we actually lose what drives the human being in emotion.”
— Matt Egol (40:53)

10. Emerging Hot Topics: Geo, Content Marketplaces, Brand Optimization (43:04–48:22)

• Growth of Geo/SEO for LLMs: now more analytics and influence monitoring than “optimization”; complex rights issues for content licensing
• Amazon, Microsoft rumored to be launching publisher marketplaces for training data/content.
• “The talk of publishers right now”—major debates about content value, rights, and how to price/monetize for AI use.

11. Will Agents Flood the Web with “Craip”? (49:53–51:10)

• Explosion of AI-generated and “fake” content is both a challenge and (Egol contends) a creative opportunity.
• The need to balance creativity and orchestration; “molecular gastronomist” model for hybrid art and science.

“We call it crap with AI—C R A I P… Is it creativity or crap and slop? There's going to be a lot of creativity where people embrace it and figure out what's working.”
— Matt Egol (50:05)

12. State of AI: It’s Already Here (51:26–54:12)

• The speed of AI’s progress has left the general public uninformed; AI is already better than most humans at a variety of knowledge tasks.
• Real client case studies: ad creative generated in days instead of months, 50%+ performance improvements when pairing AI and human editing, huge reductions in workflow burden for ecomm content.

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On Need for New Association:
  “AO is a community of builders… it's focused on the development and adoption of open standards, education and professional certification.” — Matt Egol (08:13)

• On Certification:
  "We see dual certification because we're trying to build trust, Ari. And the trust needs to be both of people and of the claims of the organizations." — Matt Egol (10:53)

• On AI’s PR Problem:
  "AI has a really bad PR image right now. The normies do not like AI. The people like us are obsessed with it, and the normies hate it." — Ari Paparo (29:50)

• On the Future of Ads in LLMs:
  "It's native... it's the ultimate contextual advertising... it's a great evolution of search." — Matt Egol (39:04)

• On Human Versus Bot Content:
  “If bots are going to a site analyzing text, then that's the 5% of the iceberg that's above the water rather than 95% below it, which is emotion.” — Matt Egol (41:49)

• On the Risk of AI-Created Content:
  “We call it crap with AI—C R A I P… is it creativity or crap and slop?” — Matt Egol (50:05)

Timestamps for Key Segments

• 05:06 — Egol’s career, the Internet in the 90s, and the evolution of advertising
• 08:13 — Formation of AgenticAdvertising.org: mission and structure
• 10:53 — Certification vision: companies and individuals
• 14:09 — PreBid: code stewardship & standards
• 19:22 — Collaboration with existing orgs; “perception of capture”
• 22:53 — The state of agentic advertising adoption
• 25:10 — Governance model: equal split board, voting rights
• 28:04 — “AI Super Bowl”: breakdown of AI ads, sentiment analysis
• 36:38 — Did anyone see ChatGPT ads? Critiques, the future of LLM ads
• 39:04 — Matt’s view: ads will be about context, emotion, and images
• 43:04 — Geo and LLM brand optimization as a new category
• 47:28 — How content marketplaces might work for publishers
• 49:53 — Egol on the “craip” risk: too much low-value AI content
• 51:26 — Public doesn’t grasp how powerful (and pervasive) AI already is
• 52:20 — Real-world client examples in generative/human creative collab

In Short

This episode lays out why the ad industry’s future hinges on collaborative, open, and cross-disciplinary governance of AI-powered “agentic” advertising standards. AAO aims to bridge technical, ethical, and professional gaps that existing trade groups can’t and won’t.
The conversation is refreshingly candid—highlighting both technical and cultural hurdles for AI in advertising, the genuine confusion and opportunity around LLM-native ads, and the creative risk of drowning in “craip.”
If you want to understand how AI is upending norms in ad tech and why this demands a new kind of industry association, this episode is essential listening.