IAB UK’s recently published Compass report on digital out-of-home forecasts that programmatic trading will account for 24% of all OOH spend by 2031. More than three-quarters of spend will still be traded outside programmatic channels, a decade and a half after programmatic reached outdoor. To put this into context, over 90% of display advertising is sold via programmatic channels.
Elizabeth Lane, who runs IAB UK’s insight programme and oversaw the report, treats the figure as a waypoint. She responded to written questions, declining others, including on data privacy and the forecast’s downside scenario.
“Programmatic DOOH is likely to continue rising beyond our current forecasts of 2031, so the 24% quoted in the report is very unlikely to be the ceiling,” she said.
“PrDOOH doesn’t have a structural ceiling per se, but as our Compass report explains, DOOH is unique for its premium environment and, in many cases, guaranteed audiences. As such there will always be great opportunities for brands to work directly with media owners, and it will likely mean some inventory will be traded in a non-programmatic way. However, we expect that 24% to continue rising well into the 2030s.”
The industry has a capacity problem: it can’t just build more screens
Programmatic has turned online display into a commodity and the yields have been reduced accordingly, so the question is why would outdoor fare any better? The answer is supply, says Lane.
“We don’t expect programmatic DOOH to show a similar trajectory to online display due to one factor, the scarcity of screens available. Unlike other ad formats, DOOH cannot create another space to show an ad, which helps protect [DOOH] as a premium environment. And this too helps DOOH remain a rich media, brand-safe ecosystem for advertisers and consumers alike.”
Elizabeth Lane, Head of Insights at IAB UK
Display yields fell because supply could be manufactured faster than demand grew. An outdoor screen needs planning consent, power, capital and a site somebody already owns. The digital estate has grown significantly, from 14,690 frames in 2018 to 41,517 in 2025, according to the report. Each one is an object bolted to something.
Asked how much programmatic DOOH goes through private marketplaces rather than the open exchange, Lane said the IAB UK holds no figure: “We don’t have data on the amount of prDOOH that is traded via the open exchange vs private marketplaces.”
Display’s prices collapsed on the open exchange, the end of the market where any buyer can bid on any impression. Outdoor’s premium survives in private deals between named buyers and sellers. A drift towards the open exchange would show up in prices well before anyone had the trading data to account for it.
The report’s recommendation for measurement collaboration is addressed to no one in particular
Route, the industry’s jointly owned audience currency, has counted outdoor’s audiences for years, yet the report still calls for greater collaboration on measurement. Asked why the currency has not settled the standardisation question, and who should own the standard among Route, Outsmart, the IAB and the SSPs, Lane answered in general terms rather than naming one body.
“Standardised measurement of digital advertising is an industry-wide challenge, and one that DOOH shares alongside other ad formats. There are many different trade bodies and JICs playing different roles within this, whether that’s audience currency, ad visibility, or outcomes measurement,” she said.
“The IAB’s view is always that openness and transparency across all of us will help move the industry towards the ultimate goal: consistent cross-media owner measurement and attribution for DOOH.”
A measurement standard is a competitive asset for whoever ends up owning it, and every trade body that would have to concede ground is funded by members with a position to protect, which is a reasonable explanation for why openness and transparency are the operative words and not, say, adoption or deadline. IAB UK set up a Measurement Advisory Board in January to work on this.
Only 4% of IAB UK members would call themselves agent-first
The report argues that concentrated ownership leaves DOOH well placed to adopt agent-to-agent trading standards such as IAB Tech Lab’s AAMP. IAB UK’s own research finds that 60% of the industry cite transparency, brand safety, and data security as significant concerns about agentic AI. Asked who gets disintermediated when agents plan and buy against live triggers, the OOH specialist agency or the DSP, Lane rejected the premise.
“I don’t think it’s really a case of one or the other being disintermediated, it’s more that both take on different roles in an agentic system,” she said. “Our State of AI in Advertising research shows most of the industry is still experimenting with agents rather than being fully agent-first, only 4% of IAB UK members would put themselves in that camp, so very little is being disintermediated in DOOH in the near-to-medium term. Advertisers still have real concerns around transparency and brand safety, and governance is something the industry is actively seeking guidance on, which is exactly why that specialist expertise is needed more than ever.”
On timing, she offered no date. “The first thing to acknowledge is that ‘agentic’ is a spectrum rather than one set way of transacting. We’re already seeing agents used across parts of the buying process, though these still involve a lot of human oversight, the expectation is that this decreases over time.”
Outdoor is not where the tests are running. “Agentic transactions in media is a truly nascent area of advertising, we’ve only seen test campaigns so far emerge in the UK in ‘traditional’ display advertising. It’s possible we’ll see some agentic transactions for DOOH campaigns soon, but it’s impossible to put an exact date on when.”
AAMP 2.3, she added, is “a framework that evolves today’s programmatic infrastructure into one where agents can trade and execute advertising while remaining interoperable and governed. The answer about what’s realistic is less about the technical capabilities, and more about addressing more fundamental barriers such as trust and where an agentic transaction delivers added value.”
You can download the report here.
