Since early 2025, tech giants including Meta, Amazon, Salesforce, and Microsoft have announced layoff waves officially attributed to AI. In 2026, the trend persists, now centred on agentic AI, with announcements from players like Oracle and Meta. Within the adtech sector, Scope3 reduced its sales and technical staff in early February to pivot towards agentic media trading. While job cuts are not universal, adtech firms and agency departments are actively reorganising to meet the challenges posed by agentic AI.
According to Paul Ripart, programmatic and data sales director at Prisma Media, AI agents could soon transform media buying and trading. He envisions an AI assistant connecting directly to services and executing actions via a single conversational interface. “In this model, the role of advertising platforms shifts. They are no longer interfaces for traders to log into, but infrastructures accessible via APIs,” he noted in a February LinkedIn post. This agentic wave is set to significantly impact adtech employment and specific job functions.