The EU's Digital Omnibus package would deliver regulatory relief to the ad tech sector while simultaneously handing more power to Big Tech platforms and AI agents, according to Digiday's analysis of the proposal.

The Omnibus — a bundled revision of existing EU digital rules — has split the industry response. Smaller ad tech firms, long burdened by compliance costs under the GDPR-era framework, see a chance to operate with fewer procedural constraints. Critics counter that the same provisions concentrate advantages in the hands of the largest platforms and the fast-growing cohort of AI agents that mediate consumer interactions online.

What does the Omnibus change for ad tech?

For advertisers, publishers and ad tech intermediaries, the package promises a lighter compliance load. The current consent-and-data framework has driven up legal and operational costs across the programmatic supply chain since the GDPR took effect.

Industry voices have argued for years that these costs fall hardest on small and mid-sized vendors, not on the gatekeepers the rules were written to constrain.

The Digital Omnibus appears to answer that complaint. Relief, however, comes with a trade-off.

Who gains the most?

Digiday's reporting points to two winners under the revised approach:

• Big Tech platforms, which already hold the scale, engineering resources and legal teams to absorb any regulatory regime — and which stand to benefit if rivals face fewer barriers to consolidation around dominant ecosystems.
• AI agents, the automated systems increasingly acting on users' behalf online. Looser data and consent mechanics could expand the territory these agents can operate in, shifting decision-making power away from publishers and advertisers.

Why does relief cut both ways?

The core tension is straightforward. Deregulating data flows helps small ad tech vendors cut costs. It also removes constraints that, in practice, limited how much the largest players could centralize control over targeting, measurement and consumer relationships.

AI agents add a new variable. If software agents — rather than human users — increasingly control browsing, searching and purchasing, the parties that build and host those agents gain leverage over the entire advertising value chain.

What happens next?

The Omnibus is still a legislative proposal. It must pass through the European Parliament and Council before any provisions take effect, and amendments are likely along the way.

Ad tech companies weighing the impact should track three things: the final scope of the compliance relief, any new obligations attached to AI-mediated data processing, and how enforcement authority shifts between national regulators and Brussels.

The sector has seen this pattern before. A rule change pitched as simplification rarely simplifies evenly — it redistributes advantage. On Digiday's reading, this one redistributes it upward.

For operators in programmatic advertising, the practical question is not whether the Omnibus eases compliance. It does. The question is who captures the value that relief unlocks — and on current drafting, the answer favors the platforms and the agents, not the independent ad tech middle.