Publisher priorities for 2026

At the Stockholm Programmatic Summit back in September, panel members from Index Exchange, Scope 3, Bonnier News and Publicis Groupe dug into what publishers actually need to be thinking about this year. 

Across their different roles and viewpoints, the same themes surfaced: agentic AI is moving from headline to daily workflow; there’s a renewed insistence on signal quality; and curation brings both benefits and friction. Meanwhile, a macroeconomic backdrop that remains uncertain is forcing tougher strategic decisions and a focus on proven results.

The agentic angle

Agentic AI is everywhere, but less as a buzzword and more as a way to remove toil. One sell-side leader put it plainly: “We don’t need to speak ‘agentic’, but rather ‘use cases’, because there are so many”, and this is true both in the adtech we’re developing across the industry, but also in our daily workflows. 

In other words, value will be measured in the tasks agents quietly automate - rather than simply appearing as slideware.

Another panelist was equally pragmatic, saying agents will matter only insofar as they take work off the table: “The clearest shift is prompt-based briefing inside DSPs – instead of emailing a loose brief, buyers are starting to enter intent as prompts, and this pattern will spread quickly across adtech, including direct publisher workflows.”

Set against technology overload (too many tools, too little time), solutions that reduce steps will be adopted faster than those that add complexity. So for publishers, the advice is to start small, with prompts that streamline existing processes, prove the benefit, then expand.

Signals, simplicity, and centralisation

While the moderator called out signal loss as a real threat right now, the panel agreed the fix isn’t more data, but simpler onboarding and centralised signals that buyers can actually activate - something the whole panel is doubling down on right now. 

One panellist pointed to a visible market signal: large adtech companies are shutting down sizeable products as fragmentation and operational complexity outweigh their value. A sell-side voice captured the mood perfectly: “Simplicity is the winner.” For publishers, that means centralising first-party signals into a small, portable set of attributes - more signal, less sprawl.

Publishers have two clean go-to-market approaches they can take: lead as the highest media-quality signal, or lean into conversion-driven outcomes by layering data and decisioning. The first concentrates on pristine contexts, attention, and suitability. The second prioritises measurable lift and repeatable playbooks. Both can win, but mixing them muddies the pitch and slows buying.

Beyond this, buyers said they also value a number of other things from their supply partners:

• Quality inventory, with real reach into clearly defined audience contexts, not vague “scale”.

• Product innovation: develop products in panels, and add more granular segmentation that maps to outcomes.

• Flexibility: marketplace setups that move faster than email threads and static IOs.

• Practical pricing aligned to performance, not just list CPMs.

• Trust and safety by default. That means brand-suitable supply paths, not after-the-fact patches.

Put simply, the right SSP partner can make all the difference, by keeping signals clean, workflows simple, and buyers focused on what actually performs.

Curation’s promise for the year ahead

Sell-side curation is on the rise, with publishers seeing a steady uplift in performance as a result of adopting solutions such as Index Marketplaces. Of course, it’s important to tread carefully. As one publisher summed up: “we’re afraid to lose control”, noting that some agencies and curation specialists share more with each other than with supply partners. However, even in the past six months, we're seeing that many of the historical publisher concerns, such as transparency, have been alleviated. 

Publishers know their inventory best (how to bundle, which pages convert, which segments truly perform), so to prevent curation obscuring these nuances behind an aggregator’s lens, it’s crucial we make curation more collaborative in the coming year. In short, we need to make sure publishers always have a seat at the table

Changing marketplace mechanics and new channels in 2026

Looking ahead, marketplace-style workflows are becoming routine, raising questions about how DSPs will continue to invest in targeting as curated and marketplace deals grow. Publishers will need to lean more heavily on AI internally - fewer meetings, more prompts, and more agentic checks - to streamline operations and free teams for higher-value tasks. 

LLMs are also likely to bring new ad products, perhaps sooner than we think, creating both opportunities (as new demand surfaces) and challenges (new intermediaries) for publishers. Early movers are likely to be mega-platforms like OpenAI, Perplexity, and Anthropic, with large logged-in audiences - and prompt-based workflows are expected to bleed into direct publisher interactions.

For publishers, the key takeaway is clear: focus on simplicity, transparency, and control. Apply decisioning earlier in the funnel, centralise signals, curate collaboratively with buyers, and use automation thoughtfully to reduce friction. Everything else - new channels, new tools, and AI-powered ad products - will flow naturally from that operating system. 

Start small, test, iterate, and scale what works.

At Netric, we help publishers simplify signal management and collaborate more effectively on curated inventory, so you can unlock new channels, maximise revenue, and stay in control. Chat with our team today at netricsales.com/contact.