Ads in AI: Karsten Weide on Advertising, Agentic Commerce, and the Future of AI Monetization

What happens when the technology that powers advertising becomes the thing consumers interact with directly? In this episode of Signal & Noise, Rio Longacre and Brett House sit down with industry analyst Karsten Weide to explore one of the most important—and controversial—questions facing the digital economy: how AI will ultimately make money.From advertising inside chatbots to agentic commerce, autonomous media buying, and the future of the open web, Karsten shares why he believes AI will reshape advertising more profoundly than any technology shift he has witnessed in more than three decades covering media, technology, and digital advertising. The conversation examines the rapid emergence of agentic AI across the advertising ecosystem, the growing role of automation in media planning and optimization, and why the traditional programmatic supply chain may be heading toward a fundamental transformation. Karsten explains how platforms, DSPs, SSPs, publishers, agencies, and brands are all racing to build their own agentic operating systems—and what that means for the future structure of the advertising market. The discussion also tackles one of the industry's most debated topics: advertising inside AI products. Will OpenAI, Google, Anthropic, and Perplexity eventually embrace advertising as a major revenue stream? What will AI-native ad formats actually look like? And can advertising coexist with the trust users expect from conversational interfaces? The conversation then turns to agentic commerce—the emerging world where AI agents shop, compare products, negotiate prices, and make purchases on behalf of consumers. If agents become the primary buyers, what happens to search advertising, performance marketing, and the broader digital advertising ecosystem? Karsten offers a provocative perspective on why this future may create a surprising renaissance for brand advertising, display, video, audio, and out-of-home media. Along the way, the group discusses:Why AI adoption in advertising is still in its earliest stagesThe rise of autonomous media buying and agentic workflowsHow Amazon, Google, Meta, and emerging ad tech players are approaching AI-powered advertisingThe future of SMB advertising and self-service media buyingThe battle between open standards and proprietary AI ecosystemsWhy the programmatic supply chain may look dramatically different in five yearsThe opportunities and risks of AI-driven creative productionWhether AGI is actually closer than most people thinkHow AI could reshape agency operating models and industry employmentIf you've been wondering how advertising, commerce, media buying, and consumer behavior evolve in a world increasingly shaped by AI agents, this episode provides one of the most thoughtful and grounded discussions available today.The future of advertising may not be humans buying from brands. It may be agents buying from agents. And the implications are enormous.