The Ad Context Protocol (AdCP) and the Agentic RTB Framework (ARTF) might look like rival standards vying to define the future of agentic advertising. They aren't.
The two frameworks operate at entirely different layers of the stack — and understanding that distinction matters if you're trying to figure out where to place your bets.
AdCP works at the campaign level. It handles strategy, negotiation, creative, and measurement — the decisions that happen before and after the impression. Think of it as the intelligence layer: where buyer agents and seller agents reason about budgets, relationships, and outcomes over time.
ARTF optimizes the auction itself. It's about faster enrichment through co-located containers — squeezing more signal into the RTB decision in less time. RTB still handles impression-level execution; ARTF just makes that execution smarter and faster.
These frameworks aren't fighting for the same territory. AdCP doesn't replace the auction. ARTF doesn't replace campaign-level strategy. The question isn't which one wins — it's how they fit together.
Read the full analysis at Unpacking Agentic Advertising on Andor Labs.