Butler/Till, iHeartMedia pilot AI media buying on podcast and audio

August 20, 2026 · Digiday

Rochester, N.Y.-based independent agency Butler/Till and iHeartMedia activated just under $10,000 in media buys through AI agents during a four-week test running from July to August, on behalf of a U.S. agricultural client that Butler/Till declined to name. Two agents, one from each company, were paired through an MCP server: a human planner handed a campaign brief to Butler/Till's agent, which took it directly to iHeartMedia's agent. Previous agentic pilots at Butler/Till ran through an SSP such as Pubmatic; this one closed a direct buy between agency and publisher. Kristie Murphy, the agency's associate director of programmatic, said the test cut CPMs by 42% against the client's own benchmark for direct buying, and delivered 48% of podcast impressions from premium non-skippable mid-roll placements, against an estimated 33% under the traditional plan.

Audio's share of global ad spend sits near 3.95%, per WPP Media estimates, and only about a third of digital audio inventory trades programmatically, so agentic buying touches a narrow slice of the channel for now. iHeartMedia chief business officer Lisa Coffey said the company wants advertisers to weigh audio, podcast and broadcast alongside larger digital platforms and buy the media choice that performs best. Broadcast radio joins the test later this year, when iHeartMedia's Audiograph tool becomes available through Amazon's DSP from mid-September. Agencies that adopt agentic buying early gain a data point on lower CPMs and premium placement access to justify shifting budget toward audio, at a time when WPP Media and Omnicom are building similar buying agents for video and CTV inventory.