The news: NBCUniversal (NBCU) unveiled an agentic solution for media planners to automate their upfront investments. The launch is a collaboration with dentsu-owned agency Carat, supply-side platform (SSP) FreeWheel, and Newton Research.

A programmatic buying agent customized for each client will:

• Combine audience data from dentsu and Newton with identity insights from NBCU and FreeWheel.
• Surface buying recommendations across NBCU’s full inventory, including linear TV and connected TV (CTV), based on metrics like campaign performance, search lift, and competitive signals.

The solution will debut for one of Carat’s luxury retail clients before expanding to dentsu clients across its media agency portfolio.

Why it matters: NBCU is diving headfirst into agentic tech at upfronts as streaming begins to dominate the space.

In 2026, streaming surpassed premium linear TV in upfront ad spending for the first time after years of closing the gap, per The Current. Its rise is expected to continue in 2027, with CTV ad spend reaching $20.34 billion and linear TV falling to $16.54 billion, per our forecast.

Unlike NBCU’s previous agentic buying experiments, this agent is designed to handle upfront investments, which are media planners’ biggest premium video decisions of the year. Giving AI the reins to find and recommend the best buying options for these

commitments demonstrates a big leap of trust in the technology.

Implications for media planners: AI agents can help sift through the massive amounts of data required to make buying decisions, especially at the programmatic level. Media planners can harness the analytical intelligence of agents, as well as their speed, to lock in more CTV placements through upfront investments, which tend to offer benefits for strategic planning given their months-in-advance commitments.

At the same time, media planners need to ensure their AI governance policies are capable of holding agents accountable. Inaccurate AI data can negatively affect companies relying on it, and that could lead to serious consequences if applied to upfront investments.

Audit each recommendation the buying agent offers, even at the expense of its operational speed. Lean into this speed only when the agent is consistently working without data errors and surfacing quality inventory, though regular audits should continue as well.

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