The news: Integral Ad Science (IAS) is pushing beyond its traditional verification role with the introduction of IAS Agent, a fully embedded AI assistant designed to analyze live campaign data and autonomously optimize performance inside marketers’ DSPs.

• Powered by IAS’ multimodal proprietary dataset, the tool evaluates trillions of signals across text, video, audio, and images, enabling it to automatically refine brand safety, suitability, and contextual controls that typically require significant manual oversight.
• Marketers can upload briefs or guardrails and allow the agent to apply recommended adjustments, all of which come with transparent explanations meant to boost trust in AI-driven decisions.
• The system also learns from user behavior, as consistent overrides inform future recommendations.
• Early testers including Publicis Media reported sharper efficiency and reduced ad waste through real-time, data-driven optimizations, with IAS noting that the tool can operate roughly 50% faster than human workflows.

Why it matters: Agentic advertising is going mainstream.

• Google’s expansion of Gemini-powered ads reinforces the rapid shift toward agentic AI in advertising, mirroring IAS Agent. The major platforms are racing to automate optimization, normalize conversational workflows, and reduce manual campaign management—heightening demand for transparent, third-party tools like IAS.
• IAS Agent’s roadmap shows agentic AI extending across the buying process. Planned expansions include AI-driven supply path recommendations, automated tagging support, and deeper configuration assistance.

Zooming out: The company declined to say whether the product factored into Novacap’s recent $1.9 billion acquisition of IAS. That deal, part of a surge in US ad tech M&A, places one of the industry’s most influential verification and optimization platforms under private ownership at a moment when advertisers are demanding more precision, transparency, and real-time controls.

In a recent EMARKETER interview, IAS COO Marc Grabowski emphasized that advertisers now require sharper relevance matching and tighter unsuitable-content avoidance, further underscoring the need for tools like IAS Agent.

What marketers should do:

• Lean into explainable AI for faster insights. With 45% of agentic AI adopters relying on performance reporting and analysis, marketers should prioritize tools that reveal why a recommendation is made—not just what to change.
• Let AI handle iterative campaign tuning. Since 35% of marketers already use AI for ad campaign management, per MiQ, teams should begin offloading routine optimization tasks to autonomous agents and reserve human oversight for strategy, governance, and creative quality control.