What if booking an ad started with a conversation?  

RTL Group’s adtech business Smartclip and M6 Unlimited, the advertising sales house of Groupe M6, are working together to make digital audio advertising easier to buy and sell using Sidekicks, Smartclip’s AI technology. 

Their first joint project shows how a media buyer can describe what they need in everyday language and have AI turn those requirements into a tailored advertising product – a first step towards a future in which AI agents can handle more of the media buying process. 

The collaboration builds on M6 Unlimited’s adoption of Smartclip’s Smartx technology earlier this year to manage and generate advertising revenue from its digital audio inventory across radio stations RTL, RTL2 and Fun Radio. 

From a simple brief to a tailored advertising offer 

Instead of navigating complex booking processes – from finding suitable advertising space to defining campaign details and arranging bookings – media buyers can simply describe their campaign requirements in their own words: Who they want to reach? How much they want to spend – and what they hope to achieve? 

Sidekicks then analyses the brief against M6 Unlimited’s available audio inventory, suggesting an existing advertising product or creating a tailored solution matching the buyer’s needs. The technology can also support the next steps, including valuation, booking campaigns and reporting on results – with plans to add forecasting capabilities in the future.

“Agentic AI has the potential to fundamentally simplify how media is bought and sold,” says Thomas Servatius, Co-CEO of Smartclip. “With Sidekicks, we are creating an intelligent layer between buyer intent and media inventory. Our work with M6 Unlimited demonstrates this in a tangible way: a brief can become a tailored media product through conversation, while the media owner remains fully in control.” 

Tristan Lemoîne, Deputy Managing Director of M6 Unlimited, adds: “Together with Smartclip, we are exploring how agentic AI can make our premium audio inventory easier for buyers to access. This first use case demonstrates how we can reduce operational complexity while preserving the value of our media and the expertise of our teams.” 

What's next? AI agents working together 

The project is part of Smartclip’s broader vision for agentic advertising – using AI systems that can not only answer questions but also carry out tasks and support different stages of the advertising process – while humans continue to oversee important business and commercial decisions. 

Looking ahead to 2027, Smartclip and M6 Unlimited plan to explore further applications, including pre-booking capabilities for smaller agencies and direct communication between buyers’ and sellers’ AI agents. 

The goal: to move beyond today’s human-to-agent interactions towards a more connected and efficient advertising ecosystem, while keeping media owners in control of their advertising inventory. 

Read the press release here.