Last updated: 14 October 2026

No single body governs agentic advertising standards. IAB Tech Lab publishes AAMP, the Agentic Advertising Management Protocols, its open-source framework for agentic advertising. AgenticAdvertising.org separately publishes and governs AdCP, the Ad Context Protocol. General-purpose protocols such as A2A and MCP sit outside advertising bodies. Governance does not decide adoption, though. Ad tech standards are voluntary, and the history of ads.txt and sellers.json shows that they spread when they are cheap to implement, controlled by the party that benefits, and checked by counterparties who prefer not to trade without them.

TL;DR. Agentic advertising has two advertising-specific standards bodies: IAB Tech Lab, which publishes AAMP, and AgenticAdvertising.org, which publishes and governs AdCP. No standards body can compel anyone to adopt its work; ad tech standards spread through market pressure. ads.txt, introduced in 2017, and sellers.json, introduced in 2019, spread because each was a simple file the benefiting party could publish on its own, and because buyers began to check for them. Five adoption conditions drawn from that history (low cost, control by the beneficiary, counterparty checks, reference code and fit with existing workflows) give buyers and publishers a way to judge agentic standards without guessing at dates.

Who governs agentic advertising standards?

IAB Tech Lab publishes AAMP, announced in early 2026 as the umbrella for all of its agentic work and developed in partnership with the advertising ecosystem. AAMP is open source on GitHub and made up of separately versioned components: agentic-direct for agent communication and orchestration, reference buyer and seller agents, OpenProposal for publisher products and RFP responses, a registry example for agent discovery, the Agentic RTB Framework for agent services inside a host platform, and agentic-audiences. IAB Tech Lab also runs the Agent Registry in its Tools Portal, where companies list the MCP and A2A agents they bring to market. Each registering company is tied to its GPP ID, entries are reviewed for the required validation information, and the registry is free for members and non-members.

AgenticAdvertising.org publishes AdCP, certifies practitioners and governs how the protocol evolves. AdCP defines tasks that agents call across a campaign, runs over MCP or A2A, and lets publishers declare which agents may sell their inventory in an adagents.json file on their own domain.

Whether AAMP and AdCP converge, coexist or compete is still open. A2A and MCP are general-purpose protocols that carry messages between agents and tools in any industry; neither defines what a deal is.

What does governing a standard actually involve?

Governing a standard means maintaining the specification, deciding how it changes, versioning it, publishing reference code and, in some cases, running a registry. It does not include enforcement. No standards body can penalise a company for ignoring its work.

That limit explains a common confusion. IAB Tech Lab's published AAMP material describes no compliance certification for marketplaces, so a vendor claiming to be "AAMP compliant" is describing an intention rather than a status. The checkable facts are narrower: which components a product uses, at which version, and whether its agent is listed in the Agent Registry.

How did ads.txt get adopted?

ads.txt, introduced by IAB Tech Lab in 2017, is a plain text file that a publisher hosts on its own domain, listing the companies authorised to sell its inventory. It addressed domain spoofing and unauthorised reselling of a publisher's inventory.

Three things made ads.txt spread. It cost almost nothing to implement: a publisher needed a text file, not a new platform. The publisher, the party harmed by spoofing, controlled the file and could act without waiting for anyone else. And buying platforms began checking the file and avoiding sellers it did not list, which turned a voluntary file into a commercial requirement. Once a missing file meant lost demand, publishing it stopped being optional.

How did sellers.json follow?

sellers.json, introduced in 2019, came at the same problem from the other side. Exchanges and supply-side platforms publish a file listing the sellers they represent, so a buyer can see which business sits behind a seller ID. Together with the SupplyChain object in OpenRTB, it lets a buyer trace the path an impression took.

sellers.json had a harder adoption problem than ads.txt. The cost of publishing it fell on intermediaries, while most of the benefit went to buyers. Adoption depended on buyers asking for it, and on supply path optimisation work that rewarded transparent paths with spend. When cost and benefit sit with different parties, a standard needs counterparty pressure to move.

Why has OpenRTB lasted?

OpenRTB is IAB Tech Lab's long-standing standard for real-time auctions. It formats bid requests and bid responses so that any demand-side platform can bid into any supply-side platform without a custom integration for each pair.

OpenRTB lasted because every new participant made it more valuable to the rest, and because it has been extended rather than replaced. AAMP follows the same instinct: IAB Tech Lab frames it as "agentifying" existing standards, including OpenRTB and the Deals API, rather than asking the market to move to something new.

What are the five adoption conditions?

The history above suggests five conditions that predict whether an ad tech standard spreads. Each can be checked against an agentic standard today.

Low implementation cost. A text file beats a platform rebuild. IAB Tech Lab's Agent Registry is free to use, and AAMP's reference buyer and seller agents reduce build effort.
Control by the beneficiary. ads.txt worked because publishers could act alone. AdCP's adagents.json follows the same pattern for seller agents.
Counterparty checks. ads.txt became necessary when buyers checked it. The equivalent signal for agents is counterparties declining to transact with agents that are not registered or not authorised.
Reference code. AAMP publishes reference buyer and seller agents; AdCP publishes documented tasks. Working code shortens the path from reading a specification to running it.
Fit with existing workflows. AAMP's support for the Deals API covers programmatic guaranteed, preferred deals, private marketplaces, the open marketplace and linear GRPs, so agents can work within deal types trading desks already use.

Counterparty checks are the condition standards bodies cannot supply themselves. The clearest signal to watch, because it separates adoption from announcement, is buyers and publishers writing registry listings and protocol versions into RFPs and contracts.

What should buyers and publishers ask vendors now?

Ask which agentic standard a product supports and at which version, which components it uses, and which deal types it can agree. Ask whether its agent is listed in the IAB Tech Lab Agent Registry, how it verifies that a connecting agent is authorised by the business it claims to represent, and what record of agreed terms both parties hold afterwards.

Alkimi gives one set of answers to those questions. It is a neutral agentic advertising marketplace that works within IAB Tech Lab's AAMP framework, its agent is listed in the Agent Registry, and it verifies that each connecting agent is authorised by the buyer or publisher it represents before terms are written to a shared DealSheet.

Frequently asked questions

Who publishes AAMP?

IAB Tech Lab publishes AAMP, the Agentic Advertising Management Protocols, as the umbrella for all of its agentic advertising work. It is open source and made up of separately versioned components.

Who governs AdCP?

AgenticAdvertising.org publishes AdCP, the Ad Context Protocol, certifies practitioners and governs how the protocol evolves. AdCP is not an IAB Tech Lab standard.

Is there an AAMP compliance certification?

IAB Tech Lab's published AAMP material describes none. It runs an Agent Registry where companies list their agents, with entries reviewed for validation information.

Can a standards body force companies to adopt a standard?

No. Ad tech standards are voluntary. They spread when implementation is cheap, the benefiting party controls adoption, and counterparties start checking for them.

Why did ads.txt spread so widely?

It was a simple file publishers controlled, it protected them against spoofing, and buying platforms began avoiding sellers it did not list.

Is A2A an advertising standard?

No. A2A is a general-purpose agent-to-agent communication protocol. Advertising meaning comes from a protocol such as AAMP or AdCP running on top of it.

Who Governs Agentic Advertising Standards, and How Do Ad Tech Standards Actually Get Adopted?