IAB Tech Lab’s Framework Promises Faster, More Efficient Programmatic Auctions.

The IAB Tech Lab continues its work to help create industry standards for how programmatic advertising is bought and sold. Its latest effort is focused on the introduction of a standardized approach to interoperability across the programmatic advertising ecosystem. The new specification uses a containerized architecture to enable faster communication and more efficient data exchange between technologies operating within the same data center. The trade group has just released what is known as Agentic RTB Framework (ARTF) v1.0 for public comment.

Anthony Katsur, CEO of the IAB Tech Lab, says the new frame represents a fundamental step toward modernizing how systems interact in real time. “By allowing agents and other real-time technologies to operate within the same virtual environment, we’re creating a foundation for agentic workflows and near-instantaneous media trading,” he says. “This is the groundwork for an interoperable, high-performance ecosystem.”

The ARTF v1.0 framework is designed to reduce the current time for bid requests and responses up to 80%, dramatically increasing opportunities for bid enrichment and real-time decisioning using third-party specialist technologies. The performance leap is achieved by enabling technologies to interact within the same data center, server, or even a virtual machine rather than across networks, thereby accelerating the entire auction process while reducing compute overhead and energy use. The result is a system optimized for speed, cost efficiency, and sustainability.

“In real-time systems, time is every bit as precious a resource as processing power, energy, or high-speed memory. Agentic workflows, constantly engaged in high-speed bi-directional conversations, demand architectures that treat time as a first-class asset,” Katsur explains. “A container-based design does exactly that, minimizing latency, optimizing execution windows, and freeing systems from legacy time constraints so agents can think, act, and transact without delay.”

The framework’s release builds on months of engineering and collaboration across the digital ad industry.

“We’ve been working toward this for some time,” Katsur says. “What we’re doing here is building the real-time control plane for agentic collaboration, where DSPs, SSPs, enrichment partners, measurement solutions, and other services, including agents, can communicate at high speed within the same virtual machine.”

Beyond performance gains, the IAB says the new framework also establishes the domain foundations for agentic trading. And when combined with IAB Tech Lab’s open-source infrastructure and GitHub collaboration model, they also allow participants to experiment and contribute to the specification at any time.

The proposal already has the support of programmatic companies including The Trade Desk, Index Exchange, and Chalice.

“It is a sensible and empowering approach to opening up the augmentation space that will enable brand new ways to add collaborative value to the bidding pipeline,” said Arpad Miklos, Staff Software Engineer at The Trade Desk.

The IAB Tech Lab is taking comments on the ARTF v1.0 framework through Jan. 15, 2026. Read the proposal HERE.