PubMatic's Q3 Revenue Hits $79.6M as Agentic Campaigns Triple Down

PubMatic pulled in $79.6 million in Q3 revenue, up 17% year over year, and its agentic advertising platform has already run more than 120 fully automated campaigns since launching in January. Roughly a third of those campaigns landed in Q3 alone. The ad-tech company reported the figures on Monday's earnings call.

What's driving the growth?

Two channels did most of the lifting. CTV spend made up 21% of total quarterly revenue, growing 30% year over year, according to CFO Steve Pantelick. Mobile app revenue grew nearly 40% and now accounts for about 27% of the quarter's take. AI products and rising demand for CTV and mobile inventory are the engines behind the numbers.

The shift isn't just about where money flows — it's about who, or what, actually places the buys. PubMatic launched AgenticOS, its operating system for agentic advertising, in January. Buyers have used it to run those 120-plus fully agentic campaigns, and the company expects the pace to accelerate.

When an investor asked which campaign steps still require humans, CEO Rajeev Goel suggested that whatever AI doesn't handle today soon will. He described clients as sitting at different "parts of the maturity spectrum" — some are "all in on AI," while others insist on manually reviewing each step. In practice, that means agencies holding back on automation are being framed as less mature, not more careful.

What are the risks of automated choice?

Not everyone at the table shares Goel's confidence. At an IAB roundtable called "Advertising in the Agentic Era," also held Monday, Jonathan Roberts, head of innovation at People Inc., warned that "there's a lot of risk in automating choice."

Letting AI assistants handle purchase decisions could create a "winner takes all" dynamic for brands, which Roberts called "bad for democracy." He also flagged a personalization problem: an AI engine recommends the same thing to everyone, like a bar serving every customer an espresso martini because it's the average order.

Personal agents raise privacy concerns too. "People will literally tell [them] everything, even if they shouldn't," Roberts quipped. That creates overreliance on memory — one past purchase doesn't mean a consumer wants the identical product again. His proposed sweet spot: agents that prioritize real-time data, protect privacy, and still personalize. Otherwise, "we have this kind of 'espresso martini for everyone' world, and that sucks."

How does AI celebrity licensing work?

Separately, WPP-owned Ogilvy is partnering with Creative Artists Agency to use celebrity likenesses in AI-generated ads, Digiday reported. The ads will draw on CAA's existing library of digital face and body scans — originally built for de-aging and postproduction — and will carry AI watermarks plus talent approval.

The deal technically clears Hollywood's bar. SAG-AFTRA rules require performer consent for digital replicas and mandate compensation at in-person filming rates. Terry Crews is the only talent publicly opted in so far. The bigger hurdle may be audience perception: consumers still associate deepfaked celebrity endorsements with scam ads, even as AI-generated content like the viral "Fruit Love Island" draws voluntary viewers.

What else happened?

• The New York Times rounded up the best, worst and strangest midterm ads.
• Regional sports network SNY faced layoffs and show cancellations, per The Athletic.
• Business Insider published a timeline of the scandal that hit Nvidia CEO and co-founder Jensen Huang over the weekend.
• SiriusXM named Anjali Sud as its new CEO, Variety reported.

For buyers, PubMatic's numbers signal that agentic campaign execution is moving from pilot to default — and the Q4 earnings call will show whether the maturity spectrum keeps tilting toward full automation.