Frankfurt, 18 September 2026. At the AGF Forum 2026, AGF Videoforschung announced a major upgrade to its research and measurement system before an audience of around 300 representatives from the media, advertising and research industries. From 2028 onwards, five interconnected components are set to form the foundation of video measurement: the integration of return-path data, a dedicated measurement category for Connected TV including co-viewing, a Virtual Panel, a new digital data model and Cross-Media Campaign Measurement.
Held in Frankfurt on 17 September under the theme “See Beyond the Screen”, the Forum explored how metrics are generated, how they can be compared and how they should be interpreted in an increasingly fragmented video market. Other key topics at the AGF Forum included a live demonstration examining the quality of digital advertising contacts, followed by a panel discussion on media quality and ad fraud, as well as the “Video 2030” study. Specialist journalist and moderator Juliane Paperlein guided attendees through the programme and panel discussions.
In her opening remarks, Kerstin Niederauer-Kopf, CEO of AGF Videoforschung, emphasised the importance of reliable and comparable measurement. Particularly in the context of AI, she said, it must remain transparent how metrics are generated and what they actually represent:
“The market does not simply need more numbers; it needs a common frame of reference. Especially when AI is added to the equation, one thing is clear: output scales – but so do errors. What we do within the Joint Industry Committees is not simply about putting numbers on a slick dashboard. We need to look beyond the screen and understand how data is generated, what it represents and whether media are being measured on a comparable basis. After all, investment decisions are made on the basis of these data every single day. That is why these data are market infrastructure – and a foundation for investment, media diversity and a democratic public sphere,” said Niederauer-Kopf.
Prof. Dr. Katharina Zweig, Professor of Computer Science at RPTU Kaiserslautern-Landau, followed with her keynote, “Does AI Know What It Doesn’t Know?”, exploring how the opportunities offered by AI can be harnessed while remaining aware of the limitations of AI systems. Her keynote highlighted risks that are already a reality: error-prone systems, their deployment in unsuitable contexts and the potential to scale harmful actions through AI. She also stressed the particular responsibility borne by the media: their content feeds into AI systems, whose outputs in turn influence what people see and what they perceive as credible.
Ad Fraud and Media Quality put to the Live Test
Norman Wagner, Managing Director of Pion3ers, then gave an impressive live demonstration of just how easily AI-generated content and seemingly human traffic can be scaled. Since the end of December 2025, a fully automated AI-powered editorial operation created by Wagner had produced 2,414 articles, 69 e-paper editions and 18 podcasts – at a calculated cost of four cents per article. At the AGF Forum, the system created 24 articles for a new cat magazine live on stage and with audience participation in around seven and a half minutes. Wagner then sent automated browsers to the website. The bots scrolled through pages, accepted consent requests and collected cookies from real brand websites in order to appear to ad-tech systems as human users and be served advertising.
“When machines write, machines read and machines measure – who is checking the whole thing?” Wagner asked.
Advertising spend, he argued, is the crucial lever: if money stops flowing to such websites, the underlying business model loses its foundation.
The live experiment provided the starting point for the discussion “Media Quality – How Ad Fraud, MFA and Misleading Metrics Threaten Effectiveness”, moderated by Juliane Paperlein and featuring Oliver Kampmeier, Marketing Lead at fraud0; Manfred Kluge, Chairman DACH at Omnicom Media and Chairman of Initiative 18; Patrick Swientek, Global Director Platforms & Services IBC at Danone and OWM Board Member; and Uwe Storch, Head of Media at Ferrero. The panel discussed the validity of digital measurement metrics, price and cost pressures within the market, and how consistently advertisers exclude invalid contacts from their campaigns.
According to an analysis by fraud0, the share of invalid traffic rose from 21.31 percent in the fourth quarter of 2024 to 46.18 percent in the second quarter of 2026. This represents an increase of 116 percent within a year and a half.
“What data are my decisions based on, and what data are being used to build my audiences? Have I paid for human interaction – or ultimately for a bot?” Kampmeier asked.
Kluge cautioned against equating falling prices with greater efficiency: “My prediction is that ROI will continue to decline. With this fragmentation, this complexity and all the fraud in the digital world, every euro spent on advertising is being increasingly devalued. We need to reconsider where a euro is truly well invested so that we actually get something back in return.”
Video 2030
The extent to which the video market is changing was also illustrated by the “Video 2030” study, selected findings from which were presented by Anke Weber, Managing Director of AGF Videoforschung. For the study, pilot combined secondary analyses and AGF data with qualitative C-level interviews from the video market and an online survey of 6,027 people.
The findings show that the amount of time people spend consuming video remains high, while viewing is shifting significantly from linear to non-linear consumption. At the same time, global aggregators, new gatekeepers and AI are gaining influence over content production, discoverability and consumption.
Five Components for the Research System from 2028
Changes in the video market require an analysis and planning framework that makes a wide variety of video offerings comparable and brings together different distribution channels. The study therefore provided the thematic transition to AGF’s system upgrade, which was presented in its entirety for the first time that afternoon by AGF Directors Martin Landgraf, Andrea Schombara and Dr. Nikolaus Schmitt-Walter.
Five interconnected areas of development will work together in the future:
- Integration of Return-Path Data
AGF is integrating HbbTV measurement data into its linear TV measurement. The AGF Panel will remain the modelling benchmark while being enriched with additional HbbTV usage data. These data are currently modelled on the basis of more than 1.7 million devices with actual measured usage, with the target architecture expected to encompass around 3.4 million measured devices.This will create a new hybrid data foundation combining representative AGF panel data with a large pool of anonymised device-level data. As a result, fragmented TV viewing scenarios involving smaller offerings and niche target groups can also be reresented more robustly.
- Dedicated Device Category for Connected TV
For Connected TV, AGF plans to introduce a dedicated device category covering streaming and static-display usage on the big screen as well as shared viewing.
- Virtual Panel
The future Virtual Panel will comprise around 800,000 synthetically generated cases and will mirror the representative AGF Panel. It is designed to represent the video universe and bring together linear TV, streaming and static display at person level on a deduplicated basis.
- New Digital Data Model
In addition, AGF is developing a new digital data model. Rather than representing digital usage solely through predefined aggregates, the new model will operate at the level of individual usage elements. Measured views can be transferred at a granular level, down to individual videos. Based on these data, the model will calculate deduplicated net reach for freely selected combinations of content offerings and time periods.
- Cross-Media Campaign Measurement
Cross-Media Campaign Measurement builds on the logic of AGF’s content measurement and will measure video campaigns across media and channels after delivery. Planned metrics include deduplicated net reach, target-group structures and incremental reach, both for total reach and over time.
To enable this, AGF is developing cross-platform campaign IDs and metadata. The results are intended to be integrated into reporting systems and made accessible via APIs.
According to the roadmap presented, 2027 is planned as a transition and testing year. The components and the way they interact will be tested step by step and gradually moved into parallel operation. From January 2028, the new dataset could become the sole measurement standard.
Amazon as Global First Mover in the AGF Standard
For the first time, Nils Gräf, Managing Director of Amazon Ads Germany, appeared on stage at the AGF Forum. In conversation with Kerstin Niederauer-Kopf, he gave a positive assessment of the collaboration to date. Since November 2025, Prime Video’s ad-supported video-on-demand offering has been actively measured within the AGF system, with reporting expanded to include live sporting events in June 2026.
Amazon chose independent and transparent measurement in order to provide advertisers and agencies with comparable data in the planning tools they use.
As the first global streaming provider to have its services measured according to AGF criteria, Amazon is taking on a first-mover role on the path towards a cross-market standard. The server-to-server integration uses the same data logic and processing rules as the measurement of other digital offerings.
For Niederauer-Kopf, this also makes it a blueprint for further platform integrations: a common standard can only emerge if the same rules apply to all providers, making their offerings genuinely comparable.
The Forum concluded with the panel discussion “The Future of Video”, moderated by Juliane Paperlein. Andrea Biebl (iProspect/Dentsu X/MWO), Dirk Bruns (YouTube), Kristina Bulle (Procter & Gamble/OWM), Frank Vogel (Ad Alliance) and Kerstin Niederauer-Kopf discussed shifting advertising budgets, the requirements for independent and comparable measurement, and the integration of global platforms into a common market standard. Bulle advocated for independent measurement and welcomed the fact that, alongside local providers, Amazon is also participating in AGF measurement. During the debate over the comparability of proprietary platform data, Bruns said: “There will continue to be a variety of data sources, each of which has its own value. At the same time, there is no question that AGF remains the standard for video measurement in Germany.”
Kerstin Niederauer-Kopf concluded:
“Independent audience measurement must remain transparent, comprehensible and verifiable. This is not an area where we can afford to become complacent. It is our responsibility to provide the market with exactly that – and it is the responsibility of clients and agencies to demand it.”