In this op-ed, Melanie Hoptman, VP and MD, brands and agencies, APAC at LiveRamp, explores how AI agents are reshaping marketing and why data collaboration, governance, and trust will determine which marketers succeed.
Marketers have no doubt heard from all corners of the ecosystem about AI agents, and how agents are the key to unlock the next era of performance and value in today’s fast-paced market. It may be too early to know exactly which agents to use, and exactly how to use these agents, but looking ahead we can already sense the critical divide that will decide which marketers benefit from agents: whether marketers have the ability to empower their agents to make informed decisions using their data, and whether marketers can trust their agents to safely make decisions and protect their data.
As such, a critical key for marketers thinking about using agents is to shift their thinking to be data-driven, and to fully lean into data collaboration, in order to be ready as agents help more and more of the ecosystem make the jump to lightspeed.
The promises agents offer
At risk of dramatically oversimplifying the complexities of AI and agentic marketing, the transformative potential of agents is that they do not sleep. Agentic marketing collapses the cyclical aspects of marketing by continuously reading signals, then making decisions based on data, and continuously acting in the marketers’ interests.
Across the marketing stack, agents can: spot shifts, reallocate budgets, adjust strategies, and make it easier for marketers to reach their target audiences effectively; drive more performant activation, such as through tools like customised and/or dynamic creative optimisation; and enable incrementality and other forms of measurement, bringing these measurements into marketers’ workflows and making it easier to discern, adjust, and re-activate to drive more performance.
How data and collaboration unlock agents
Just as with any AI tool, signal quality becomes the key input for better results. Marketers must input high-quality, high-depth, and consented data signals to drive high-performing marketing outputs.
Data collaboration enables the responsible gathering and connecting of data from various sources to unlock combined data insights. As agents proliferate across the marketing ecosystem, data collaboration enables these agents to tap data wherever agents are actioning, in order to drive decision making with rich data signals.
Just as marketers need accurate, deep, and scaled data to power performant marketing, unlocking agents relies on this as well. A marketing stack built around a consistent identity framework will power better outcomes not just for agents, but for marketing as well, as marketers can eliminate mismatched or duplicated records.
Similarly, collaborating with trusted publishers, platforms, and complementary brands unlocks new intent signals across more context and touchpoints, informing better agents and better marketing, as marketers get a better view of the consumer journey to inform better personalisation.
Also, data collaboration unlocks network effects, whether you’re scaling your marketing with retailers and nonendemic partners, or focusing on agents and unlocking richer, broader, and more actionable intelligence, quicker.
Why governance, and standards, matter
Ensuring agents are using only permissioned data and keeping consumers’ information safe is only part of the imperative for marketers.
While marketers can simply focus on using agents as they become available, the very nature of defining how agents work is open for input, with the possibility of intelligent agents dangling on the horizon. Agents have the potential to exchange signals; identity, contextual, and reinforcement, that represent consumers’ real-time intent and response to advertising, in an interoperable format that still protects consumers’ privacy.
As the agentic part of the ecosystem rapidly grows, marketers have an ability to help define the potential of agents with standards, and to develop standards that help agents match marketers’ need for performance as well as their need for governance and security. These critical aspects of data-driven marketing will continue to lead marketers’ priorities in agentic marketing, and stakeholders’ work here will lay the foundation to unlock the next phases of growth and performance for agents.
How marketers can get started
As with any innovation, marketers should be forgiven for any scepticism around the innovation and its ability to drive meaningful returns in the early days. However, with agents’ potential to drive always-on performance for marketers, the early experimenters and leaders in adopting agentic marketing will get a tremendous head start, and the only way to learn is by trying agents for yourself.
Equally important, marketers leaning into agents will be able to make their voices heard when it comes to standards and governance, and will be able to have an outsized say in shaping agentic tools that are not just productive, but also safe, for marketers and their customers.
