Yes, AI agents can buy linear TV in 2026, but only in a narrow and supervised form. Agent-to-agent orders for live linear campaigns have been executed with US broadcasters, while upfront commitments, final sign-off and post-air reconciliation still sit with people.

TL;DR. NBCUniversal tested agents on a live NFL playoff buy in January 2026, and Simulmedia reports 10 live campaigns and more than 300 spot-level orders placed agent to agent with FOX in its October 2026 update. IAB Tech Lab's AAMP added linear GRPs as a transaction type, and its open-source buyer agent quotes and books scatter spots priced by cost per point or CPM. Every executed example still has people approving the deal on both sides, so the terms an agent works to need agreeing before it gets anywhere near a schedule.

How is linear TV bought and sold today?

Linear TV in the US is traded in two markets: the upfront and scatter. The upfront is the annual cycle in which advertisers and agencies negotiate year-long commitments with networks, typically taking effect in October and running through the following September, according to Digiday's explainer. Inventory the networks hold back is sold later in the scatter market, closer to air and without the year-long commitment.

The sums are large. Nielsen estimated in May 2024 that around $20 billion changes hands at the upfronts for primetime broadcast and cable, about the same again for other dayparts and CTV, and a further $20 billion to $30 billion goes through scatter during the year.

The currency is audience rather than placements. A buy is planned against a demographic such as adults 25 to 54, and one rating point equals 1% of that target universe, as IAB Tech Lab's buyer agent documentation defines it; gross rating points (GRPs) add those points up across a schedule. In the same 2024 piece, Nielsen said it had reported C3 and C7 commercial minute ratings, live plus three or seven days, for more than 15 years.

The paperwork is still heavy. "There's still a lot sold via direct IO," NBCUniversal chief product officer Ryan McConville told Digiday, meaning a signed insertion order rather than an automated deal.

What counts as an AI agent "buying" linear TV?

"Buying" covers everything from an agent drafting a schedule to an agent committing budget alone, so each example needs placing on a scale. Alkimi, an enterprise platform for agentic advertising, uses a five-rung scale it calls earned autonomy: Observe, Recommend, Draft, Human-approved action and Bounded automatic action.

On that scale, the executed linear examples so far sit at human-approved action. Agents assemble, negotiate and place the order, but people on both sides sign off before anything airs. None of the public examples reviewed here describes linear TV bought at the fifth rung, where an agent commits spend within preset limits without a person approving each deal.

What has actually been executed, and what has only been announced?

Separating the two matters, because announcements often describe a capability before the first order runs.

Executed:

NBCUniversal, RPA, FreeWheel and Newton Research. The partners announced the project on 6 January 2026 as a proof of concept, with a buy-side agent built by Newton Research for RPA and sell-side agents from NBCUniversal for linear and FreeWheel for digital. AdExchanger reported that the agents refine the proposal through feedback loops and the campaign executes once humans on both sides sign off. By February, McConville told Digiday the live NFL playoff test had run, describing it as "a functioning technical proof-of-concept."
Simulmedia and FOX. In June 2026, Simulmedia said its agent sent a buysheet to FOX's agent, which validated it and placed the order through FOX's pricing and planning approval, with both teams approving. By October, it reported 10 live campaigns across five FOX properties and more than 300 spot-level orders, with agents exchanging counter-offers when requested inventory was unavailable.

Announced or in testing:

FOX AdStudio. FOX announced an agentic platform in June 2026, naming Simulmedia for linear transactions alongside WPP, Horizon Media and Universal Ads by Comcast. In October, MediaPost reported that FOX was extending agent-to-agent dealmaking to live, linear campaigns with agency partners including WPP, Omnicom, Horizon Media, Stagwell and Simulmedia.
Paramount and Disney. Digiday reported in May 2026 that Paramount was testing an AI seller agent in closed beta that buyer agents could reach through AAMP and AdCP. The same report said Disney had been testing agentic capabilities and planned to discuss them with buyers during the upfront.

Which standards and platforms support agent-based linear and CTV buying?

AAMP, IAB Tech Lab's Agentic Advertising Management Protocols, covers linear explicitly. IAB Tech Lab says AAMP 2.0 added support for the Deals API, covering programmatic guaranteed, preferred deals, private marketplaces, the open marketplace and linear GRPs. Its open-source buyer agent handles linear through the same quote-then-book flow as digital, with fields for dayparts, networks, local markets, demographics, GRP requests and cost-per-point or CPM pricing, and a data model aligned to the TIP standard used for TV trafficking and billing.

AdCP, the Ad Context Protocol published by AgenticAdvertising.org, also lists linear TV as a channel and supports cost-per-point pricing. An earlier explainer covers how AdCP handles broadcast and other non-programmatic channels, and another covers how AAMP handles deal types through the Deals API.

In live deployments, the connection varies by partner. FreeWheel built a Model Context Protocol server using AdCP, according to AdExchanger, while Simulmedia says its FOX connection runs over A2A, the open Agent2Agent protocol Google introduced so that agents built by different companies can work together.

What is still manual in linear TV?

Most of it, by volume. In January 2026, McConville told AdExchanger that linear still accounts for about 80% of premium TV ad impressions and has remained mainly manual, and told Digiday that NBCUniversal is "a ways away from having this fully productionalized."

The upfront itself is still a human negotiation. IAB Tech Lab's reference buyer agent targets scatter because it "maps naturally to the quote-then-book flow", and in May 2026 TelevisaUnivision's John Kozack told Digiday that agentic buying was "very, very early" for his company, with "another six months to a year of testing and learning" ahead.

Orders still lean on documents. Digiday reported in April 2026 that direct insertion orders remain common, especially in TV, which is the gap Mediaocean and Disney's Prisma Direct integration targets for Disney's streaming inventory. The Deals API is designed to carry terms agreed beforehand rather than proposals or negotiation, so price is settled in the agents' own quote and booking steps.

Proof of delivery is slow. Broadcast systems generally do not fire web trackers, so reconciliation relies on traffic logs, affidavits and ratings that settle over days. Data quality is the other constraint: "You need clean data. Your product catalog needs to be well-organized," McConville said.

What should buyers and sellers agree before letting an agent near linear TV?

Agree the terms an agent cannot infer, in writing, before the first quote is requested.

The currency and the demo. Rating points or impressions, which demographic, which ratings stream (for example C3 or C7) and the date the numbers become final for billing.
The guarantee and the remedy. Whether an audience shortfall is made good, in what form and by when, because make-goods in agent-negotiated deals need the same precision as human ones.
Substitution rules. FOX's agent suggests alternative inventory based on the target audience when a daypart is unavailable, according to MediaPost, so decide whether a buyer's agent may accept a substitute alone and within which networks and dayparts.
When a quote becomes binding. IAB Tech Lab's buyer agent receives a non-binding quote and then books, so agree the moment a booked spot can no longer be withdrawn and what cancellation options apply.
The autonomy rung and the approver. Name who signs off, at what spend threshold, and which actions the agent may take without approval.
Creative and spot length. FreeWheel's David Dworin told AdExchanger that an ad typically does not run when a 30-second slot receives a 20-second spot or unapproved creative, so agree lengths, approvals and fallbacks first.
One record of the deal. In a published simulation of agent-negotiated deals, 95.3% had mismatched records when each side kept its own, against 0.19% with a shared record.

Where does this leave buyers in 2026?

The answer to the headline question is yes, with conditions. Agents can now quote, negotiate and place linear orders with sellers that have built matching systems, and scatter and live spot buys are where that is happening first. Upfront commitments, final approval and post-air proof remain with people.

For teams that want to rehearse first, Alkimi offers a Gym where buyers and sellers build their own agents, set the rules they work to and spar against counterparty agents before any real money moves. Its neutral Marketplace works within IAB Tech Lab's AAMP framework today and is being built to be AdCP compatible, with people keeping approval rights at the deal level and each agreement written to a DealSheet that both parties hold.

Frequently asked questions

Can an AI agent buy a linear TV upfront deal? Not on its own in any public example so far. Agents are being discussed for upfront planning and deal set-up, but the year-long commitments are still negotiated and signed by people.

Do AI agents buy linear TV by GRPs or by impressions? Both are possible. IAB Tech Lab's reference buyer agent can request GRPs against a target demographic and receive cost-per-point or CPM pricing, depending on what the seller supports.

Which protocols do agents use to buy linear TV? AAMP from IAB Tech Lab covers linear GRPs through its Deals API support, and AdCP from AgenticAdvertising.org lists linear TV with cost-per-point pricing. Live deployments have also used MCP and A2A connections between buyer and seller agents.

How are AI agents changing connected TV advertising? Agents are taking on the set-up work around direct deals, such as gathering availability, forecasts and packages, which used to run on email and spreadsheets. NBCUniversal's test placed one agent-run buy across both linear and streaming, so CTV and linear can increasingly be planned in a single flow.

Does a person still approve agent-bought linear TV? Yes, in every executed example reviewed here. NBCUniversal's campaign ran once people on both sides signed off, and Simulmedia's June order with FOX was approved by both teams.

Is agentic linear buying the same as programmatic linear? No. McConville told AdExchanger that agents sit on top of programmatic rather than replacing it, automating tasks such as setting up a deal that standard programmatic buying was never designed to handle.

Can AI Agents Buy Linear TV? What's Possible in 2026