Observed Signal · May 1, 2026 · Panel Discussion / Fireside · Source: Adweek · Impact: 3/5 · Sentiment: Positive
Generative AI to Enable Agentic, Conversational Ad Formats
At an ADWEEK House Possible fireside co-hosted by InMobi, Abhay Singhal (co‑founder of InMobi and CEO of InMobi Advertising) discussed how generative AI will change advertising and ecommerce. Singhal predicted that by the end of 2026 ad formats will support robust agent-to-agent interactions and more conversational, personalized experiences. He highlighted Glance (owned by InMobi) as an example of 'agentic commerce' that generates visualizations showing products on users or in their environments. Singhal also raised the cost-to-scale challenge for generative AI in high-volume ad ecosystems and said InMobi is testing ad formats where ad revenue subsidizes model token costs to make the approach financially viable for publishers and merchants.
Provides industry-level predictions and operational models for applying generative AI to ad formats and ecommerce (agentic commerce, conversational ads, and commercial models to subsidize token costs); relevant to publishers, adtech vendors, and marketers but not a formal product launch or major platform policy change.
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Key Takeaways & Evidence Grounding
- Article published on May 1, 2026 by ADWEEK contributing writer Justin Chin.
- ADWEEK hosted a Possible fireside with Ryan Joe (ADWEEK editor in chief) and Abhay Singhal (co‑founder of InMobi; CEO of InMobi Advertising).
- Abhay Singhal predicted that by end of 2026 there will be ad formats supporting meaningful agent-to-agent interaction enabling conversational, agentic experiences.
- Glance, a company owned by InMobi, is described as an agentic commerce platform that generates AI visualizations to show products on users or in context.
- InMobi is testing ad formats that aim to balance or subsidize generative-AI token costs with ad revenue to make large-scale deployment economically viable.
Connected Companies & Entities
2 Entities mappedOntology Mapping & Concepts
Related Market Signals & Shifts
Recent verified developments and strategic activity across this market segment.
Agentic AI Promises Smarter Advertising Ecosystem
An ADWEEK House Cannes Lions group chat co-hosted with Taboola explored how agentic AI is moving performance marketing from automation toward autonomous decision-making. Panelists from Taboola, NVIDIA, Omnicom Media/Acxiom, Accenture Song Americas, Paramount Advertising and Proem said agentic systems can routinize planning, optimization and even transactions, but successful adoption requires governance, transparency, documented workflows, high-quality data and interoperable AI tool ecosystems rather than a single platform. Speakers emphasized the need for explainability and undo controls to build trust, and investors and marketers will soon demand measurable ROI from AI pilots. Taboola said it currently has customers in beta testing and hopes to scale next year.
Ads Enter AI Assistants: What Marketers Need
Generative AI is reshaping digital marketing, moving beyond content creation into conversational, agent-driven advertising that can use product catalogues, recommendations and agent-to-agent transactions. Platforms such as Google Ads and OpenAI’s ChatGPT offer AI-driven ad formats and buying options (CPM and CPC), while Amazon’s Alexa for Shopping (Rufus) demonstrates product-feed-driven shopping assistance. Startups like Gravity are reportedly working with retailers (Target, Best Buy) on agent-to-agent advertising. The shift raises practical challenges for marketers around attribution, CPC measurement, product-feed quality, brand safety, and auditability of AI agent decisions. Research (a May 2026 study and a 2026 paper titled “Auditable Agents”) highlights risks from unsupported AI claims and outlines requirements for auditability. The article argues organisations need AI governance, improved product data, and new measurement approaches to participate effectively in AI-led buying journeys.
ATS London 2026 — Speakers & Vendor Consent List
ExchangeWire’s ATS London 2026 “Meet the Speakers” page functions as a CMP-style vendor transparency and consent registry tied to the ATS London 2026 event, with page timestamps shown on 2026-08-19, 2026-08-24 and metadata dated 2026-08-26. It enumerates dozens/hundreds of adtech, martech, measurement and publisher vendors (examples include Adobe Advertising Cloud, Amazon Ads, Google Advertising Products, Microsoft Advertising, Criteo, DoubleVerify, Index Exchange, 33Across, LiveRamp, PubMatic, Magnite and Xandr) and publishes, per vendor, declared legal bases (Consent or Legitimate Interest), permitted purposes (e.g., measure advertising performance, create profiles for personalised advertising), special purposes/features, categories of personal data processed (IP addresses, device identifiers, geolocation), tracking methods (e.g., “Cookies only” or “Cookies and others”), consent expiry and explicit data retention durations. Vendors participating in IAB TCF 980 are identified; the content is a granular vendor/cookie/consent reference rather than a narrative speaker article.
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