AI Advertising Glossary
This glossary defines the core vocabulary of agentic and conversational advertising: the protocols, transaction models, targeting methods, and ad formats of AI surfaces. Each entry opens with a direct definition, then explains how the concept works in practice, with current examples from the industry and from Adgentek's Agentic Ad Server, AdsMCP, and Spark.
Agentic advertising
Agentic advertising is the planning, buying, and selling of advertising by AI agents that transact with each other over open protocols such as the Ad Context Protocol (AdCP), replacing dashboard-driven programmatic workflows with autonomous agent-to-agent coordination..
Ad Context Protocol (AdCP)
The Ad Context Protocol (AdCP) is an open industry standard, stewarded by AgenticAdvertising.org, that defines how AI agents communicate to plan, buy, and sell advertising.
MCP advertising
MCP advertising is the use of the Model Context Protocol to connect advertising infrastructure to AI applications and agents, so that AI surfaces can request ads and buying agents can transact media through a standard interface..
Agent-to-agent media buying
Agent-to-agent media buying is a transaction model in which a buyer's AI agent negotiates and executes media purchases directly with a seller's AI agent over a shared protocol such as AdCP, without DSP or SSP dashboards in between..
Intent-native targeting
Intent-native targeting matches ads to the intent a user is expressing right now in a conversation with an AI system, using declared, in-session signals rather than behavioral profiles, cookies, or page-level context..
Conversational ad format
A conversational ad format is an ad unit built for dialogue: it appears inside an AI conversation and lets the user interact with the brand through questions and answers instead of viewing a static impression..
Looking for the fundamentals first? Start with what is conversational advertising, then see how conversational ads work and how brands advertise in AI chatbots. For the numbers behind the category, see the H1 2026 conversational AI advertising data report.
