Media agencies build audit tools to prevent AI agents from overcharging

Media agencies deploying AI to speed up their planning and buying practices are discovering that the tech won’t deliver savings if it’s left to run by itself — it has to be monitored. As agentic tools developed to aid audience targeting, campaign set-up or media execution proliferate, some agencies are beginning to build tracking or auditing tools. The hope is that they’ll allow staffers to check that AI tools aren’t hallucinating or burning through tokens . “It can get out of control very, very quickly,” said Jonathan Whiteside, global evp of technology at Dept.