What AI Agents Mean for Out-of-Home Advertising
AI agents advertising in out-of-home environments refers to autonomous software systems that plan, buy, sell, and optimise OOH media campaigns by continuously acting on data, campaign goals, and predefined guardrails instead of relying on manual human workflows for each step. In this model, buy-side agents work for advertisers and agencies, while sell-side AI automation supports media owners that manage digital billboards, in-store screens, and cinema networks. Together, they aim to make out-of-home ad buying as easy and measurable as online channels. Agentic AI goes beyond chatbots layered over traditional tools by coordinating complex tasks such as audience targeting, venue selection, creative approvals, and campaign execution from start to finish. Human teams still define objectives and monitor outcomes, but the repetitive work of planning and booking programmatic OOH ads shifts to software agents that can operate continuously and at scale.
Broadsign’s Sell-Side AI Agent and Automated Media Management
Broadsign has introduced a sell-side AI agent built on its OOH management and monetisation platform to automate media owner workflows. The agent sits on top of a large global OOH media supply, including what the company describes as the largest aggregation of video-enabled displays, in-store media, and on-screen cinema inventory. It uses Broadsign’s data infrastructure, screen-level audience indexes, dynamic creative capabilities, and guaranteed in-advance buying to decide which screens to sell, when, and at what priority. According to Broadsign CTO Bryan Mongeau, agentic AI allows the company to “double down” on its mission to support media owners in reaching their business goals. By tying pricing, packaging, and availability decisions directly to real-time data, the sell-side AI agent aims to open more demand for sellers while cutting manual steps like proposal building, trafficking, and availability checks that slow down traditional OOH media sales.
Draft Digital’s Buy-Side AI Agents and Programmatic OOH Ads
On the buy side, digital marketing agency Draft Digital is developing AI agents that automate out-of-home ad buying for brands within broader multichannel strategies. These agents ingest campaign goals and first-party performance data to plan programmatic OOH ads, select venues, and book screens without manual spreadsheet work. Draft Digital’s team describes themselves as early adopters of programmatic DOOH, and they see agentic advertising as a natural next step that lets them build cleaner, more integrated ecosystems for clients. Their buy-side AI agent uses protocols like AdCP to communicate with sell-side platforms such as Broadsign, allowing it to request inventory, negotiate terms within defined rules, and confirm bookings. With this approach, media planners move from line-by-line buying to supervising and refining agent behaviour, freeing time for higher-level strategy and creative thinking while still maintaining control and oversight of campaign parameters.
A Fully Agentic OOH Campaign for Lot of Happiness
Broadsign’s sell-side AI agent and Draft Digital’s buy-side agent recently worked together on a campaign for charity lottery Lot of Happiness, using digital inventory from media owner Global Netherlands. The companies describe it as the first fully agentic AI OOH ad campaign, with AI agents handling planning, booking, and execution end to end under human oversight. The system used the brand’s campaign goals to drive audience and venue targeting, media selection, campaign setup, creative workflow and approvals, and final delivery. Lot of Happiness, which reports over 100 000 participants and more than €50-million donated to good causes, needed efficient ways to extend reach without the media budgets of larger lottery players. The campaign was framed as a proof that digital out-of-home can be as easy to discover, plan, buy, and measure as other digital channels when buyers, sellers, and technology partners collaborate around shared agentic AI infrastructure.
End-to-End Automation and the Future of OOH Trading
The integration of sell-side AI automation with buy-side agents suggests a path toward end-to-end automation in out-of-home ad buying. Broadsign aims to unlock agentic trading at scale, giving buyers more data and efficiency while helping media owners package and monetise inventory for omnichannel campaigns. Global Netherlands sees this collaboration as a way to make its digital out-of-home offering more accessible to buyers seeking seamless activation alongside online and mobile channels. For agencies like Draft Digital, agentic advertising promises sharper strategic impact by aligning OOH placements closely with first-party data and performance metrics. Human teams remain essential for setting objectives, shaping creative, and defining guardrails, but AI agents take over repetitive coordination and optimisation. As more buyers and sellers adopt these systems, programmatic OOH ads are likely to feel less like a separate speciality and more like a standard, automated part of the media mix.