Adtech 2030: Predictions for the Agentic Age

This IDC Perspective provides a high-level analysis of the forthcoming shifts in digital advertising, offering industry predictions for CMOs and the adtech vendors that support them to consider. The advertising technology landscape is undergoing a profound transformation, shifting from reactive automation to autonomous intelligence by 2030. Key trends include the rise of first-party data collaboration, the fragmentation of retail media into commerce clouds, intrinsic in-game advertising, agentic AI-driven operations, and the dominance of AI-generated discovery and attention-based metrics. Privacy-enhancing technologies and regulatory pressures are reshaping identity and market structure, while social commerce and AI-generated advertising redefine engagement and efficiency. Adtech suppliers must prioritize privacy, interoperability, and advanced automation, embedding AI and outcome-based measurement at their core. Success will depend on the ability to adapt to ecosystem fragmentation, regulatory change, and the growing importance of trust and transparency. The winners will be those who enable secure data collaboration, deliver measurable outcomes, and position themselves as strategic partners in an increasingly agentic, privacy-centric, and AI-powered ecosystem."By 2030, digital advertising will be defined by brands that build durable data alliances, deploy autonomous AI, and treat privacy as a structural requirement rather than a constraint. In this near-term future, relevance will hinge on a brand's ability to syndicate value and adapt to shifting models of commerce and attention. Those that fail to intentionally architect their signal for the agentic era risk fading as the ecosystem recalibrates around automation and trust." - Roger Beharry Lall, research director, Advertising Technologies, IDC