Amazon has rolled out Complete TV, a new tool within its Amazon DSP.  The tool will enable advertisers to plan, manage, and optimize their TV ad budgets across both linear TV (traditional cable and broadcast) and streaming platforms. 

According to the company, Computer TV is designed to track upfront commitments, the year-long TV ad deals advertisers make with networks. It will also optimize ad spend in real time using AI-powered recommendations. 

“We’re now providing our customers with tools that drive ad performance across leading streamers and the open internet to manage both upfront commitments and scatter plans,” Krishan Bhatia, VP of Global Video Advertising at Amazon said on LinkedIn. 

The tool is available in beta and will be released to all advertisers participating in the 2025–2026 upfront season, where brands commit to year-long TV ad buys in advance.

How Complete TV works

Amazon says Complete TV is a solution to fragmented and inefficient TV ad buying. It provides AI insights for advertisers to make data-informed decisions about where to allocate their budgets. 

According to Kelly MacLean, VP of Amazon DSP, the TV ad landscape is complex and filled with wasted spending. The company claims that advertisers waste up to 55% of their TV budgets by repeatedly targeting the same people across multiple screens and networks.

Complete TV aims to solve this by tracking upfront commitments and ensuring advertisers deliver on them. The tool will also provide AI-driven recommendations for where to place ad spending across TV and digital platforms. “Our goal is to act as a neutral party because we know that these agreements are already transacted between advertisers and publishers—we just want to facilitate that,” MacLean said.

Amazon’s Complete TV also offers real-time spend optimization across both linear and streaming, and reducing waste by tracking reach and frequency to avoid over-targeting the same audiences. Advertisers can also upload their audience data, and Amazon’s DSP will recommend the best platforms to reach those viewers. The tool integrates with Amazon Publisher Direct, giving advertisers direct access to premium streaming publishers.

What Amazon will charge advertisers for Complete TV

Amazon is also offering low fees to attract advertisers to Complete TV. It will not charge advertisers for programmatic guaranteed deals on Amazon-owned properties, but for programmatic guaranteed deals with third-party streaming publishers, advertisers will be required to pay a 1% fee.

A competitive play against Google and The Trade Desk

The company is pushing into programmatic TV advertising following the shift from linear TV buying to automated ad placements. With Prime Video launching ad-supported tiers, Amazon is looking to own a share in the streaming ad market.

But Amazon’s move to launch Complete TV is a direct challenge to Google and The Trade Desk’s dominance. Both platforms have been growing their programmatic TV offerings and are working to expand their foothold in TV advertising. Google’s Display & Video 360 (DV360) and The Trade Desk’s UID2.0 framework are key tools in TV programmatic ad buying, giving advertisers access to digital and connected TV inventory. 

However, Amazon’s retail data and Prime Video audience insights could give it an edge over rivals. Advertisers could target high-intent consumers across multiple channels easily.

MacLean says Amazon is not trying to replace existing relationships between advertisers and publishers but to make the process easy by delivering on pre-negotiated deals. “We don’t want to insert ourselves in between the advertiser and the publisher,” she told AdWeek. “Instead, we want to just make it easy for them [the publisher] to deliver anything that’s pre-negotiated.”

The appeal of Complete TV for advertisers lies in automation and efficiency. It could reduce or remove the manual work involved in managing TV budgets while reducing wasted ad spend. With more advertisers shifting to data-driven buying, Amazon is making a strong case for why its DSP should be a part of its TV advertising strategy.

However, Will advertisers buy in? Google and The Trade Desk already have existing relationships with brands and agencies, and shifting TV budgets is not a simple process. But if Amazon can deliver on its promise of making programmatic TV buying simple, it could grab a significant share of the TV ad market from competitors.

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