Why AdCP matters

Every new channel in advertising has arrived with its own interface: its own fields, formats and reporting. Programmatic tried to fix that with shared auction standards, then accumulated a layer of intermediaries on top. Agents could repeat the same story, with every platform shipping its own agent API. AdCP is how we avoid that.

What AdCP is

AdCP, the Ad Context Protocol, is an open standard for how advertising agents talk to each other. It defines the core tasks, such as listing products, requesting proposals, creating media buys, syncing creatives and reporting delivery, and the shapes of the messages that carry them. It runs over MCP and A2A, so any agent framework can speak it.

Why an open protocol

• Reach. A buyer agent that speaks AdCP can reach every seller that speaks it, without a custom integration per seller.
• Choice. Sellers can bring their own sales agent, use a third party's, or use a hosted storefront agent, and buyers never need to know which.
• Accountability. Standard tasks mean standard records. Proposals, approvals and delivery can be compared and audited across sellers.

How Semicola uses it

Semicola is AdCP on both sides. Buyers call one account-resolved MCP endpoint, and every storefront answers as an AdCP sales agent at its own endpoint. When a media company connects its existing sales agent as an inventory source, Semicola talks to it over AdCP too. Our own tools add conveniences, such as refining a proposal or opening a widget, but the transaction underneath is always the protocol.

Where to start

Read the agent brief, then follow the connection guide in our docs. If you already run an AdCP sales agent, you can list it on a storefront for free.