He criticized the approach of some competitors to The Trade Desk, who he suggested are slyly repackaging standard programmatic guarantees and fixed price deals with shiny “agentic” wrapping: “They argue that their cheap fee will compensate for their lack of objectivity and their decisions that favor publishers rather than the buyer who is footing the bill.”
The comments fit with Green’s broader criticism of some supply-side platforms’ practices. Earlier this year, he likened some SSPs to house flippers who sell at a markup without necessarily having sellers’ best interests at heart. Tensions between The Trade Desk and some SSPs also flared last year when the company made the unusual decision to relabel all SSPs as “resellers.” Now, Green appears to be taking a twofold dig at some of those players: suggesting they have misaligned incentives when they offer buying tools, while also accusing them of slapping an “agentic” label on basic programmatic offerings.
PubMatic has been aggressively positioning its AgenticOS platform as an alternative for buyers; the system is integrated with its programmatic guaranteed and private market deals. Magnite, meanwhile, now offers a buyer agent and an agentic orchestration layer spanning buy- and sell-side functions. And this spring, Kargo launched Project Kera, an AI-backed planning and buying interface.
As a vote of confidence in The Trade Desk’s potential in advertising’s agentic future, Green bought back some 6 million shares of his company’s stock in March.
The company is also stacking its ranks with a fresh executive cohort that could help it execute a turnaround. In the past three months, the DSP has welcomed Kristi Argyilan, the mastermind behind Target’s Roundel retail media business, as chief commercial officer; Nate Olmstead, who joins as CFO from AI firm Penguin Solutions; ex-Zendesk exec Sarah Gavin as CMO; and former Google and LinkedIn exec Penry Price as board member.
