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Key Takeaways:
Marketing and advertising teams are increasingly turning to AI to overcome a wide range of constraints, including limited budgets, resources, and time.
To date, the technology appears to be delivering on at least some of its potential, with nearly three-quarters of marketing and advertising professionals saying it has made them moderately to significantly more efficient at their jobs. But while adoption is accelerating, many organizations are still figuring out where AI can deliver the most meaningful impact.
In 2026, the clearest opportunities for AI-driven impact in digital advertising stem from five key areas: creative and content generation, process streamlining, media buying and optimization, media strategy, and campaign measurement.
Tapping into AI for ideation and to generate content and creative assets is one of the most widely adopted use cases in marketing today. A Basis survey found ideation and brainstorming to be the most popular use of AI among advertising and marketing professionals, while drafting content and creative assets ranked third. Teams are applying AI across a range of tasks, from streamlining internal communications to drafting marketing content to producing digital ads.
When it comes to generating ad creative, AI is creating powerful new opportunities to scale personalized creative more efficiently. “Marketers should evaluate their messaging and creative strategies to find where AI can unlock scalable personalization and variation that was previously limited by time and cost,” says April Weeks, Chief Investment and Media Officer at Basis.
That being said, the involvement of human employees remains an important step in developing effective creative and content, with three-quarters of industry professionals believing that AI-generated content does not yet match the standard of human-generated work. AI is best used as a complement to human-led work, helping teams produce more content in less time while enabling more tailored outputs at scale.
Marketing and advertising teams are also widely leveraging AI to streamline complex processes: According to one survey, it’s the fourth most popular use case of generative AI among industry professionals today. As teams look for ways to reduce manual work and improve operational efficiency, close to two-thirds of marketers and advertisers say their organizations have invested in technologies that automate or streamline processes within the past year.
This is a critical piece of an effective AI strategy, as solutions that are tacked on to existing workflows rather than thoughtfully integrated into them will likely exacerbate existing tech stack sprawl. High-performing teams are nearly three times as likely as others are to report that their organizations have completely restructured individual workflows with AI in mind. The shift from tacking on point solutions to rethinking entire workflows is what enables marketing teams to achieve efficiency gains with AI.
Another key consideration is data governance and unification, as fragmented data can be a major barrier to both workflow efficiency and effective AI adoption. Unified, well-governed data not only streamlines the workflows that feed AI tools, but also improves the quality of their outputs. To move towards data readiness, marketers should audit their tech stacks with data unification in mind, seeking out platforms and tools that centralize data sources, enforce consistent governance standards, and create a single source of truth that both their teams and their AI tools can reliably draw from.
AI has long played a role in media buying and optimization, but recent advances are enabling marketers to improve how they allocate and adjust their investments. “We’re moving toward a place where buyers will be able to move much more quickly, because AI will be surfacing data signals and insights faster and accelerating tasks like predictive optimization and forecasting,” says Weeks.
Already, AI-powered tools can process dozens of real-time signals to inform bidding decisions and shift budget across channels as performance evolves. This allows teams to respond more quickly and drive ROI by making more informed adjustments over the course of a campaign. AI also enables more advanced audience targeting, helping marketers surface overlooked segments and uncover new audiences via approaches like building synthetic audience personas.
Personalization at scale—a persistent challenge in media strategy—is another area where AI is opening new doors. Studies show that 71% of customers expect personalized interactions, and 76% get frustrated when they don’t happen. And when applied effectively, AI-driven personalization has been shown to improve customer satisfaction by 15% to 20%, drive revenue increases of 5% to 8%, and lower the cost to serve by up to 30%.
Adoption, however, has not kept pace. Only one-third of marketers are using predictive AI for media buying and planning, while roughly a quarter are applying generative AI in this area. That gap between potential and adoption represents a clear competitive opportunity. To capitalize, advertisers should ensure they’re using advertising platforms that offer AI-enhanced media buying and optimization, prioritizing those that have these tools integrated into their core workflows.
For advertisers eager to achieve meaningful differentiation with AI, media strategy presents significant opportunities.
Over half of businesses cite shifting consumer preferences as their top challenge. Yet only around one quarter of marketers say they are using AI as part of their media strategy development process.
AI can help marketers better keep up with these shifts by enabling deeper, faster insights.
“AI is creating new opportunities for media strategists to synthesize large volumes of data and uncover insights more efficiently and comprehensively,” says Weeks. “It can take tasks that were once highly manual for advertisers and execute them faster, using a broader set of data.”
Most current use cases for AI across media strategy fall into three core areas:
Together, these capabilities can help marketers better understand their customers and inform a more effective media strategy. Emerging tools are also beginning to extend beyond insights into execution. For example, there are now AI solutions that can turn media briefs into full omnichannel media strategies spanning both the open web and walled gardens, helping agencies and in-house teams reduce manual planning work and move more quickly from strategy to activation.
Campaign measurement remains an under-utilized AI use case poised to become central in the years ahead.
AI excels at parsing, organizing, and analyzing large data sets, and many marketing and advertising teams today are swimming in more campaign data than they can effectively use. Because of the fragmentation of that data, marketers are often weighed down by the manual processes necessary to unify data across platforms, structure it for analysis, and extract meaningful insights in a timely manner. AI can help streamline that workflow, making it faster and more scalable.
AI can also assist with tasks like running regression analyses for performance forecasting based on historical spend and conversion data, helping teams move from raw data to actionable insight more efficiently.
“As AI becomes more embedded in marketers’ workflows, it will increasingly shape how teams approach reporting, insights, and analytics,” says Weeks. “That shift is already underway, but adoption and maturity vary widely across organizations.”
What will separate the agencies and brands who effectively adopt AI from those who don’t? According to Weeks, the companies that succeed will be those who lean into AI and understand the importance of data governance and data hygiene.
In addition to prioritizing data readiness, marketing and advertising teams that thoughtfully implement AI across content generation, process streamlining, media buying, strategy, and measurement will be better positioned to move faster, make smarter decisions, and focus their human talent on the work that matters most.
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Want more insights into how AI is reshaping digital advertising strategy? We surveyed marketing and advertising professionals from top agencies and brands to understand how they are adopting AI, where they are seeing results, and more. Check out AI and the Future of Marketing for all the top takeaways.
YouTube has evolved from a simple video sharing platform into the most powerful digital advertising channel for political campaigns. With over 76% of registered US voters using the platform weekly and the platform generating an average of more than $776 million in advertising revenue per week, understanding how to leverage YouTube effectively is now essential for political advertisers.
When examining the landscape of social video platforms accepting political advertising in 2026, YouTube stands virtually alone at scale. While platforms like Netflix and Microsoft's Bing have opted out of political ads entirely, YouTube continues to offer unparalleled reach across every demographic group.
The numbers tell a compelling story. This election cycle is projected to see almost $11 billion in total spending, with connected TV capturing a significant portion and YouTube commanding the largest share of that investment. The platform's reach extends beyond traditional metrics. A single video from a top creator like Mr. Beast can generate viewership equivalent to an NBA Finals game or Monday Night Football broadcast.
Perhaps most significantly, TV screens have now surpassed mobile and desktop as the primary consumption device for YouTube content in the United States. This shift transforms YouTube from a digital-only platform into a genuine broadcast alternative with superior targeting capabilities.
YouTube offers several distinct inventory types, each serving specific campaign objectives:
This represents the core YouTube advertising experience, available across all channels and content types. Advertisers can access this inventory through real-time bidding, making it the most flexible and scalable option for political campaigns.
YouTube Select provides access to premium content from top creators and brands. The platform organizes this inventory into curated lineups including top artists, popular creators, sports content, entertainment, and families. For political advertisers, the broadcast lineup is particularly valuable as it provides access to YouTube TV inventory.
This premium placement requires advance reservations, especially during high-demand periods. Working with a Google Premier Partner can unlock discounted rates not available through standard channels.
YouTube TV allows political advertisers to place video content within live television and DVR environments as traditional commercials. This extends broadcast strategies with greater efficiency and preliminary audience targeting capabilities. During peak political season, particularly September through November when live sports dominate viewership, this inventory becomes especially competitive.
Political advertisers can choose from multiple ad formats, each optimized for different strategic goals:
These ads allow viewers to skip after five seconds. The strategic advantage is clear: if a viewer skips your ad, you pay nothing. Those first five to 10 seconds before the skip option appears represent free impressions. This format works exceptionally well for awareness campaigns where broad reach matters more than guaranteed completion.
When your message requires full delivery, non-skippable ads ensure viewers watch the entire spot. This category includes bumper ads (six seconds) and longer formats up to 60 seconds or more. While YouTube recommends standard lengths of six, 15, 30, and 60 seconds, the platform accommodates custom lengths like 38 or 48-second spots without requiring editing.
This relatively new capability allows campaigns to tell stories across multiple ads served in sequence. If a viewer engages with the first ad, they'll see the second, then the third. If they skip, the system can route them to alternative content based on regular targeting parameters. This approach works particularly well for candidate introduction campaigns that build narrative over time.
Unlike in-stream ads that run within video content, in-feed ads appear in search results, on the YouTube homepage, and as recommended videos. Users must actively click to watch, creating a triple qualification: they see the ad, choose to click, and then watch the content. While this can command premium pricing, it delivers highly qualified views from genuinely interested voters.
As YouTube's answer to TikTok and Instagram Reels, Shorts represents rapidly growing inventory. While horizontal video ads can run in Shorts, vertical creative performs significantly better and delivers a superior user experience. Campaigns already running vertical content on other platforms can easily extend that investment to YouTube Shorts.
YouTube and YouTube Music have become major podcast players. Audio ads allow campaigns to reach listeners consuming podcast content, including popular shows from NPR and other major publishers. This format also provides a solution for campaigns without video assets, allowing static images with audio overlays to run in video environments.
This newer format displays image-based ads when users pause YouTube content on television screens. After a 10-second pause, the ad appears and remains visible until the viewer resumes playback. Purchased on a CPM basis, pause ads offer another touchpoint for reinforcing campaign messages in living room environments.
YouTube advertising operates through two primary campaign structures, each optimized for different objectives.
Designed for persuasion, video reach campaigns excel at delivering candidate biography content and contrast ads highlighting differences with opponents. These campaigns are purchased on a dynamic CPM (cost per thousand impressions) basis, with campaign managers optimizing bids to balance efficiency with quality audience exposure.
Built for consideration, video views campaigns work exceptionally well for get-out-the-vote initiatives. The key difference lies in the buying model: Advertisers only pay when viewers complete the entire video (up to 30 seconds). For a three-minute video, cost is incurred at the 30-second mark. This approach maximizes impressions while ensuring payment only for engaged viewing.
Recommended ad lengths vary by campaign type:
| Campaign Type | Recommended Lengths | Best Use Case |
|---|---|---|
| Video Reach | 15s, 30s, 60s | Persuasion, candidate bios, contrast ads |
| Video Views | 15s, 30s | Consideration, GOTV, issue education |
YouTube's targeting options differ significantly from other programmatic platforms, with specific restrictions political advertisers must understand.
Demographics are limited to age, gender, and household income. Third-party audience segments and first-party data onboarding (including voter files commonly used in Connected TV campaigns) are not available on YouTube.
Geographic targeting supports zip codes, cities, DMAs, states, and countries. Importantly for down-ballot races, congressional district targeting remains available.
The majority of YouTube targeting relies on contextual signals:
For example, a Second Amendment-focused candidate might target channels discussing firearms and hunting. An environmentally-focused campaign, meanwhile, could target content about green energy and electric vehicles. Keyword targeting works similarly to search advertising, reaching voters actively seeking information on specific topics.
YouTube does not allow targeting based on:
These restrictions reflect Google's approach to maintaining trust and transparency in political advertising while complying with federal and state regulations.
Google defines election ads broadly. Any content promoting current or potential candidates, political parties at any level, or ballot measures, initiatives, and propositions falls under political advertising restrictions.
Before running political ads, accounts must complete Google's verification process. This requires a few pieces of information, including:
Working with a Google Premier Partner streamlines this process. These partners represent the top 1% of spending brands and agencies, providing direct access to human support rather than automated bot reviews. This becomes critical for quick-turn campaign needs and troubleshooting disapproved ads.
All political ads appear in Google's Ads Transparency Center at adstransparency.google.com. This public database allows anyone to search for competitors, view their creative, see when ads ran, and access approximate spending levels. Smart campaigns use this resource for competitive intelligence and budget planning.
Political advertising costs on YouTube increased 20-50% during peak periods in 2024, driven by high demand and the crowded advertising environment. These premiums intensified during early Q4 when political spending overlapped with traditional brand advertising for the holiday season.
YouTube Select and YouTube TV inventory require advance planning. In previous cycles, YouTube TV inventory has completely sold out regardless of budget, leaving late-moving campaigns without access. Securing premium placements well in advance of go-live dates is essential.
Standard YouTube auction inventory never sells out due to the platform's massive scale. While costs may fluctuate based on demand, campaigns can always access this inventory even for quick-turn needs.
Account verification should happen as early as possible, ideally before campaign launch. While expedited processing is sometimes available, building buffer time prevents delays when launching time-sensitive messaging or responding to campaign developments.
While less common in political advertising, two campaign types deserve mention for specific use cases:
These campaigns drive consideration across YouTube, Google Discover, and Gmail. They require conversion tracking implementation but can effectively build interest in candidates or initiatives when measurable website actions matter.
Performance Max, or "PMax," runs across all Google inventory, optimizing toward specific conversion goals like newsletter signups or volunteer registrations. This approach works when driving trackable actions matters more than broad awareness.
Both formats require website tracking tags and work best when clear conversion events can be defined and measured.
Success on YouTube requires understanding both the platform's capabilities and its constraints. Here are some tips for achieving success when advertising on YouTube this election season:
Complete account verification immediately. Reserve premium inventory for critical flight dates, especially during September through November when live sports and peak political activity converge.
Don't rely on a single ad type. Combine skippable ads for efficient reach with non-skippable formats for guaranteed message delivery. Layer in-feed ads to capture active searchers and shorts to reach mobile-first voters.
The same 30-second spot that works on broadcast may underperform on YouTube if it doesn't capture attention in the first five seconds. Test multiple creative approaches and let performance data guide budget allocation.
Without access to voter file targeting, contextual signals become crucial. Invest time identifying channels, topics, and keywords that align with your target voter's content consumption habits.
Use the Ads Transparency Center to track opponent spending and messaging. This intelligence informs budget decisions and creative strategy.
Build budgets assuming 20-50% cost increases during peak periods. This prevents mid-campaign budget shortfalls when competition intensifies.
YouTube's political advertising requirements, verification processes, and optimization strategies differ significantly from other platforms. Partner with teams holding Google Premier Partner status and specific political advertising experience.
YouTube represents the most scalable, targetable video advertising platform available to political campaigns in 2026. While restrictions on audience targeting require different strategic approaches than other digital channels, the platform's reach across every demographic group and its dominance in both mobile and living room viewing make it indispensable.
Success requires understanding the full toolkit: From skippable in-stream ads delivering efficient reach, to YouTube TV placements extending broadcast strategies, to contextual targeting replacing voter file approaches, to verification processes enabling compliant campaigns.
The campaigns that master these elements early, secure premium inventory in advance, and optimize creative for YouTube's unique environment will gain significant advantages in the crowded 2026 election cycle.
Whether you're managing a congressional campaign, a down-ballot race or a national initiative, Basis has the expertise and technology to help you win in 2026.
Basis provides political advertisers a unified, omnichannel platform to execute precise, targeted media strategies across YouTube, CTV, streaming audio, programmatic, and beyond. And our team of experienced political advertising specialists understands the verification requirements, timing pressures, and platform nuances that can make or break a campaign.
Explore Basis’s political advertising capabilities at basis.com/political-advertising-2026.
In this episode of Adtech Unfiltered, Malorie Benjamin, Chief Transformation Officer at Dixon Schwabl + Company, joins host Noor Naseer to unpack how the agency pitch process is evolving.
She shares how data, AI, and predictive modeling are reshaping the way agencies approach new business, why many clients are still stuck on last-click attribution, and how transparency can build trust in programmatic buying. Malorie also explores the growing pressure on CMOs to adopt AI, how agencies can simplify complex tech for clients, and what truly sets agency pitches apart today. The discussion offers a candid look at what it takes to win modern agency pitches.
Humans are wired to search.
With billions of search queries per day, marketers have long known where and how to find their audiences. Now with the rise of generative engines and AI, the search landscape is facing its biggest upheaval in decades. Traditional search, long the backbone of digital strategy, is being rapidly replaced and reshaped by generative engine optimization (GEO), fragmented user journeys, and new discovery ecosystems.
In this webinar, Robert Kurtz, Basis’ Strategic Business Outcomes Partner, joins host Noor Naseer, VP of Media Innovations + Technology, to discuss the past, present, and future of search. They highlight immediate threats to legacy search approaches and inspire strategies for brands, marketers, and advertisers to reclaim visibility and influence.
Key Takeaways:
After years of uncertainty, TikTok's sale to a group of US investors has finally given TikTok advertisers something they haven't had in a while: stability.
For years, regulatory volatility kept many advertisers from making long-term commitments on the platform. After all, why build a strategy around an app that might eventually cease to exist in the US? Now that the threat of a ban is off the table and the sale is finalized, advertisers can plan with more confidence than they’ve had in years.
Still, this new era of TikTok comes with unanswered questions that advertisers would do well to keep tabs on. Potential changes to the app’s famed algorithm, new privacy concerns, the evolution of TikTok commerce, and the development of AI-led advertising features stand out as the most important areas to watch in the coming months.
TikTok's algorithm is, in many ways, the true heart of TikTok itself. It's what fueled the app's rise to prominence and what keeps users so deeply engaged (see: “I built this algorithm brick by brick”). As such, whether the algorithm will change under new ownership has become one of the biggest questions for users and advertisers alike.
The good news? The owners are incentivized to keep things as similar as possible to not rock the boat with users and advertisers. Still, even subtle changes could alter the user experience in meaningful ways—and some algorithm changes are essentially baked into the deal itself. The app’s new owners (a group called TikTok USDS Joint Venture LLC) have licensed the algorithm to Oracle, and stated that they will “retrain, test, and update the content recommendation algorithm on US user data.”
Major content changes seem unlikely in the short term, but significant questions remain as to how this group of investors will influence what people see in their TikTok feeds. This concern isn’t lost on users: Shortly after the sale, many reported signs of content suppression on the app. Perception matters too: Whether changes are happening or not, if users feel like their feeds are shifting, that could affect usership and engagement. User sentiment is already in flux, with one recent survey finding that one-third of Gen Z users now feel they must actively train their TikTok algorithms because they’re not as personalized as they once were.
Considering this, advertisers should monitor TikTok usership and engagement over the coming months to stay abreast of any changes that may occur as a result of the algorithm’s evolution.
Algorithm uncertainty isn’t the only perception risk advertisers should track. TikTok’s new privacy policy presents another layer for advertisers to consider. The app is now collecting more user data, which has garnered privacy concerns from both users and human rights experts. Even Gen Z—the generation that drove TikTok's rise—is taking notice: 64% of Gen Z TikTok users say the sale made them more aware of their data.
This presents a potential risk for advertisers, as these privacy concerns could impact usership and engagement. As with the algorithm, the key for advertisers is to keep a close eye on how these concerns play out in the numbers.
How the commerce side of TikTok will develop under new ownership is another open question worth watching. Oracle—now a key player in TikTok's new ownership structure—has deep roots in retail commerce and supply chain management, which could have notable implications for TikTok Shop. If Oracle further integrates TikTok with new commerce solutions or introduces an Oracle commerce solution for the app, that could be a significant selling point for advertisers looking for closed-loop measurement on retail and commerce campaigns.
The flip side, though, is balance. If the platform leans too heavily into commerce at the expense of entertainment content, the user experience could suffer. Already, 79% of Gen Z TikTok users miss the early days of the app, before the surge in brand partnerships and the launch of TikTok Shop. Advertisers should monitor how that balance plays out, and whether engagement holds steady as the commerce side of the app continues to evolve.
Oracle's involvement also raises questions about where TikTok's AI-driven advertising capabilities are headed. Meta has set a high bar with campaigns that leverage AI for campaign builds, optimization, and audience targeting. Before the sale, TikTok was just scratching the surface in this area. With Oracle now in the mix, it's reasonable to expect TikTok's AI-led advertising offerings to accelerate.
If that is how things play out, creative is going to be an even bigger lever on TikTok. With AI taking on more of the campaign building and optimization work, the brands investing in UGC, influencer content, and platform-native creative will have a meaningful edge. Those that aren't will find it increasingly difficult to perform.
Overall, while there are some big question marks in the TikTok advertising space post-sale, the outlook is mostly positive. The app’s future is stable, advertising performance appears to have remained consistent, and TikTok continues to be cost-efficient relative to other social platforms, with strong conversions and CPA.
That said, the advertisers who keep a close eye on the questions outlined above—around the algorithm, privacy, commerce, and AI-led advertising—will be best positioned to navigate the platform successfully as this new chapter continues to unfold.
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AI is poised to transform more than just TikTok advertising. To see how marketing teams at leading brands and agencies are already putting it to work (and where the challenges still lie), check out AI and the Future of Marketing.
Key Takeaways:
You need to get started using programmatic buying tools, but you’ve never done it before, and you don’t know where to begin. Join the club. We get it. It’s the same reason we haven’t learned to cook for ourselves yet.
Here’s the good news: We’ve got experts at Basis who know the ins and outs of programmatic advertising. All you have to do is ask the right questions. Lucky for you, we’ve asked the basic questions and we’ve come equipped with answers—and, lucky for us, we've been assured repeatedly that there is no such thing as a dumb question.
To start: Programmatic is a very broad term. Simply put, it’s technology that automates digital media buying. This can include automating anything from rate negotiation and campaign set up to optimizations and actualizations. One of the primary buying tools you have at your disposal is a DSP.
A demand side platform (DSP) is an automated ad buying platform, where advertisers and agencies go to purchase digital ad inventory. Examples of ad inventory include banner ads on websites, mobile ads on apps and the mobile web, and in-stream video. DSPs are integrated into multiple ad exchanges.
Popular examples of DSPs include The Trade Desk, Google DV360, Amazon DSP, and Basis DSP.
DSPs use real-time bidding to purchase ad impressions automatically. Here's how the process works:
An SSP is not the same thing as a DSP, but it is similar in concept.
Supply-side platforms, or sell-side platforms (SSPs), facilitate the sale of publisher inventory through an ad exchange. SSPs offer services such as minimum bid requirements in order for the publisher to maximize how much their ad space sells for. The difference is that DSPs are for marketers and SSPs are for publishers. SSPs, like DSPs, are plugged into multiple ad exchanges.
Think of the ad exchange as the "go-between" in the automated buying world. An ad exchange is a digital marketplace that enables advertisers and publishers to buy and sell advertising space via real-time bidding (RTB). Real-time bidding (RTB) is the process of buying and selling ad impressions through instantaneous auctions that occur in milliseconds. The ad exchange announces each impression—with the inventory flowing through DSPs and SSPs—in real time and asks buyers if they are interested in buying said impression and at which price
| Platform | Definition | Who Uses It |
|---|---|---|
| DSP (Demand-Side Platform) | Automated platform for buying digital ad inventory | Advertisers and agencies |
| SSP (Supply-Side Platform) | Platform that helps publishers sell their ad inventory | Publishers |
| Ad Exchange | Digital marketplace where DSPs and SSPs connect to buy and sell ads via real-time bidding | Both buyers and sellers |
In order to understand why DSPs matter, it's important to remember where the need came from and how the ad industry operated before automated buying. Historically, if you were a media buyer at an ad agency, the buying process was facilitated through human beings—it was you (the advertisers), the publishers (website where ad will appear), an audience (the viewer of the ad), and a bunch of spreadsheets and emails going back and forth negotiating prices. This process was complicated, time-consuming, and often error-prone. DSPs allow advertisers and agencies to buy across a lot of sites at the same time—and all of this is done instantly and efficiently, usually before the webpage loads.
There are many DSPs in the programmatic world to choose from. Choosing the right DSP for you depends on a number of factors.
DSP Evaluation Checklist:
Some DSPs come with a full team of experts, offering you everything from full-service to self-service and everything in between. With Basis DSP, you'll start with a three-month platform training program, offering you an overview of programmatic, a walk-through of the interface, and best practices for campaign creation and optimization. Ongoing support is available in the form of a customer success manager and resources to keep you informed—like new feature webinars, best practice guides, and industry-leading research reports.
Learn more about programmatic advertising with Basis.
Sean Duggan and Kristin Battersby from the Basis Candidates & Causes Team host a deep dive into the political audio advertising marketplace heading into the 2026 midterm elections. They share insights and best practices for how to effectively leverage audio—including streaming, podcasting and more—to reach voters and win this November.
Key takeaways:
Commerce media has all the characteristics of a digital advertising channel that every brand is searching for.
What began with retailers has expanded into travel, payments, and other sectors rich in transactional data—empowering advertisers to connect with targeted audiences in relevant moments with personalized messages.
Because commerce media is powered by first-party data, those audiences, moments, and messages are as targeted, relevant, and personalized as possible. A growing number of commerce media platforms also enable a sophisticated omnichannel approach, allowing advertisers to capture audience attention in saturated digital environments.
While non-retail commerce media is still nascent, its swift evolution is opening up new, less-saturated channels for marketers to reach high-intent audiences. In fact, non-retail commerce media is growing even faster than retail media, with ad spend forecast to surpass $100 billion by 2028. It’s a space where innovation—particularly AI-related innovation—is driving rapid expansion.
Considering all this, now is the time for advertising leaders in every sector to get ahead of the curve by understanding the forces driving commerce media’s growth as well as how to leverage the channel strategically.
Marketing teams today are struggling with signal loss, a lack of data readiness, and media fragmentation—all of which make it harder to deliver personalized, timely messages and craft the coordinated omnichannel media strategies that are key to connecting with consumers in today’s crowded digital environment. At the same time, economic volatility is constraining marketing budgets and putting marketing leaders under increased pressure to prove out the value of their investments.
In this environment, commerce media is well-positioned to take on a larger role in marketing budgets. “Commerce media is growing more accessible and attractive to brands outside of CPG and retail as the supply side continues to grow through the collection, organization, and availability of first-party data,” says Jane Frye, VP of Integrated Client Solutions at Basis. And the reliability, accuracy, and abundance of this data make it possible for advertisers to use commerce media for personalization at scale.
There are also increasing opportunities for advertisers to use that high-quality data for audience targeting beyond a commerce media entity’s site or app to create highly personalized omnichannel advertising experiences. Offsite retail media ad spend, which enables advertisers to activate commerce media audiences beyond a retailer’s site or app, is forecast to grow at double the rate of onsite media spend through 2026, and off-platform placements will account for over 63% of display ad spend by 2029.
Even more, commerce media is well-suited for times of economic uncertainty. As a highly measurable channel, it allows marketers to clearly demonstrate ROI. And while commerce media’s early growth was largely driven by performance marketing, it has since evolved into a full-funnel solution that supports brand-building efforts as well.
Ultimately, these strengths make commerce media not just a timely solution for today’s challenges, but also one that’s aligned with the trajectory of digital advertising.
To capitalize on the commerce media opportunity—whether a team is testing and learning on the channel or executing a large-scale strategy—marketing teams must strategize around fragmentation and a lack of measurement standardization, while also prioritizing data readiness and preparing for how the rise of agentic commerce will transform the channel.
The commerce media marketplace is growing increasingly crowded. One way to simplify the space is to limit the number of networks in play. As such, advertisers should carefully evaluate which networks can deliver the most value.
Many new entrants offer access to first-party data but lack the infrastructure to support meaningful advertising outcomes. Marketers should strike a balance between testing emerging platforms with low barriers to entry and investing in more established players with comprehensive ad solutions.
At the same time, there are some meaningful advantages to diversifying spend across a variety of platforms. A diversified strategy is the most effective approach for brand building, says Frye, as channels thrive on the cumulative effect of many small exposures. It also ensures advertisers are not over-relying on a single platform or data source, which mitigates risk and gives teams the flexibility to optimize based on performance.
To help their teams succeed in an increasingly fragmented landscape—both within commerce media and across the broader digital ecosystem—advertising leaders must take steps to reduce the complexity it creates. Tools that reduce manual labor, streamline parts of the campaign process, and unify often-disjointed systems like reporting and billing can help teams operate more efficiently and adapt to new opportunities.
High-quality data is one of commerce media’s most compelling advantages. As the space evolves, marketing teams are finding smart ways to maximize and extend that data. Tools like data clean rooms are opening up new opportunities for data collaboration, with advertisers combining data from commerce media networks, advertising platforms, and publishers with their own first-party data to drive more sophisticated strategies.
To fully capitalize on these opportunities, teams must refine how they collect, organize, store, and activate their data. This is closely tied to the broader challenge of digital advertising fragmentation and resulting tech stack sprawl: When data is siloed across a variety of tools, it becomes difficult to extract meaningful value. With over 50% of agency marketers using eight or more tools to manage client campaigns and 40% using 10 or more tools, unifying data across platforms should be a top priority for marketing teams aiming to succeed not only in commerce media, but across their broader marketing efforts. This is especially true when it comes to harnessing and operationalizing AI: Since AI outputs are only as good as their inputs, marketing teams need access to large volumes of unified, high-quality data to get reliable and differentiated outputs from their AI tools.
Another key consideration for advertisers investing in commerce media is the rise of agentic AI and agentic commerce. Agentic AI’s ability to independently research, compare, and execute purchases on behalf of consumers is poised to change how products are discovered and bought—and, by extension, how commerce media functions as a channel. Marketers who get ahead of this shift will have a meaningful advantage over their competitors.
Consumer interest in AI-assisted shopping is already significant: In late 2024, 71% of US shoppers—and 84% of Gen Z shoppers—expressed interest in using an AI agent to make purchases on their behalf once items hit a target price. Meanwhile, major AI platforms are actively building commerce capabilities that could eventually compete with what retail media has long owned at the lower funnel: Both OpenAI and Perplexity, for example, are building out fully agentic commerce infrastructure. However, OpenAI’s recent scaling back of their plans to integrate checkout directly into ChatGPT suggests that even the most well-resourced AI companies are finding it difficult to own the full purchase journey. Retail media giants, meanwhile, are leaning in on their own agentic bets: Walmart, for example, has introduced Marty, a new agentic capability built to help advertisers manage billing and bidding for their sponsored search campaigns.
As consumers increasingly rely on AI agents to research and buy on their behalf, brands and retailers will need to ensure their products are discoverable and purchasable by those agents in addition to human shoppers. This means auditing websites, product catalogs, and digital assets to verify they’re optimized for AI systems as well as human visitors, including structured data, clean APIs, and metadata-rich content that AI agents can easily parse and act on. Equally important is keeping a pulse on how this space develops, as the agentic commerce space is evolving quickly and the strategies that work today may need to be revisited as new platforms, capabilities, and consumer behaviors emerge.
Commerce media addresses many of the challenges advertisers are grappling with today, offering precision, scale, and omnichannel activation. At the same time, its measurability is a significant advantage at a time when marketers are under increasing pressure to prove performance.
To fully realize the channel’s potential, marketing leaders must take care to invest in the right partners, unify fragmented systems, build robust and streamlined data ecosystems, and prepare for how agentic AI will change the landscape. By taking these steps, teams can unlock the full value of commerce media—not only to meet current challenges, but to set the stage for sustainable growth in the years to come.
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Commerce media isn’t the only space that AI is set to transform: The technology is also poised to reshape how marketers work on a fundamental level. To find out how teams are actually navigating that shift, we surveyed professionals from leading brands and agencies about the tools they're using, where the technology is delivering, and where the gaps remain. Check out AI and the Future of Marketing for all the findings.
For years, advertising in AI-powered environments was limited if not largely nonexistent. But after a flurry of activity over the past few months, that’s no longer the case: Many chatbots and AI-generated search results are now ad-supported (or will be soon), and the pace of change is accelerating.
For advertisers, this means navigating fragmented platforms, limited reporting, and new intent dynamics—all while direct inventory access remains restricted for most. Here’s a look at the current state of AI media advertising, what makes these environments distinct, and where advertisers should focus their attention.
Key Takeaways:
After a slow start (during which OpenAI CEO Sam Altman famously described ads on ChatGPT as a “last resort”), advertising in AI-powered environments has begun to debut across different platforms. And while the timelines have varied across the broader AI ecosystem, the pace has picked up considerably over the past year.
At Google Marketing Live 2025, the company confirmed that paid ad placements would begin appearing within AI Overviews and AI Mode, its AI-powered search experience. Both text-based Search ads and image-forward Shopping ads are now available inside AI-generated summaries on desktop, integrated directly into answers rather than sitting alongside them as separate units.
Microsoft began testing ad formats within Copilot in March 2025, making it one of the earlier chatbot platforms to introduce sponsored placements. And, notably, early insights show that ad relevance metrics in the interface are 25% better than what is seen in traditional search.
In early 2026, OpenAI announced it would begin testing ads within ChatGPT. Placements appear at the bottom of responses—clearly labeled and distinct from the LLM’s organic answer—when a sponsored product or service is deemed “relevant” to the conversation (though there is still uncertainty around what determines this relevance). Early analysis shows ads triggering most frequently on high-intent queries containing modifiers like “best” and “new,” with brands including Best Buy, AT&T, and Expedia among the early participants. The pilot remains restricted to select global brands, with a reported minimum spend commitment of $200,000.
Google has signaled to advertising clients that it is targeting a 2026 rollout for ad placements within Gemini (which is, importantly, a separate initiative from AI Mode and AI Overviews). No formats, pricing structures, or testing timelines have been shared publicly, but with Gemini surpassing 750 million monthly users, the platform represents meaningful scale. And the direct outreach to buyers signals that Google is actively moving to monetize its chatbot, even as the specifics remain undefined.
Anthropic has taken a notably different position on advertising. In February 2026, the company reaffirmed its commitment to Claude remaining ad-free, stating, “There are many good places for advertising. A conversation with Claude is not one of them.” Their reasoning centers on trust: Anthropic’s view is that users shouldn’t have to second-guess whether an AI is genuinely helping them or steering them toward something monetizable. The company says it plans to sustain that model through enterprise contracts and paid subscriptions rather than ad revenue.
Claude aside, the broader picture is a market that is quickly fragmenting. Some AI platforms are moving quickly to monetize through advertising. Others are positioning ad-free experiences as a trust differentiator (at least for now). What’s clear is that AI media environments are no longer a single category. They vary by platform, format, access, audience, and business model. For advertisers, understanding which platforms are ad-supported, which are better suited to organic reach, and how each one fits into a broader media strategy is becoming critical.
Advertising in AI environments introduces a different set of dynamics than traditional search or display, and those distinctions can carry real implications for strategy.
Perhaps the most significant change is the quality of intent. In traditional search, a query signals interest. But in a conversational AI environment, users have often already moved further down the decision path—articulating specific needs and narrowing their options before they ever see an ad.
“I believe that AI-driven answers, regardless of platform, will shorten the research cycle and turn intent into conversion more quickly,” says Lindsay Martin, Group VP of Search Media Investment at Basis. “As a result, click-throughs are more likely to be pre-qualified.”
That pre-qualification impacts landing page strategy. Martin notes that intent-specific landing pages will be critical in these environments to reflect the nuance of the prompt. This is a meaningful departure from the broader match approach that has traditionally anchored search. The prompts that trigger AI ads carry more context than a traditional keyword, and creative built for broad audiences isn’t designed to meet that specificity. Messaging will need to prioritize usefulness, clarity, and context.
Trust is another variable that sets AI environments apart. Recent research finds that 66% of US adults are highly worried about getting inaccurate information from AI tools, and introducing advertising into these environments only deepens that concern, layering a commercial motive onto platforms that users are already approaching with caution.
How platforms plan to handle that transparency gap varies. OpenAI has outlined principles governing how ads will function in ChatGPT, including that ads will not influence responses and that user conversation data will not be shared with advertisers. Google has published documentation on how ads in AI Overviews are triggered: Both the user query and the content of the AIO are considered when serving ads, and placements are currently excluded from sensitive verticals including finance, healthcare, and politics. What that documentation doesn’t address is how users are informed about why a particular ad appeared, or what guardrails exist to ensure the presence of ads doesn’t shape how AIOs are generated in the first place. Whether users accept any of these approaches—or notice the difference—remains to be seen.
“I’m interested in understanding how the different AI platforms’ algorithms determine relevance for advertising and maintain users’ trust,” Martin says. “There isn’t much transparency on that topic yet.”
Lastly, tracking and measurement questions compound both of these challenges. And to date, neither ChatGPT nor Google AI Overviews has provided advertisers with detailed metrics on the success of advertising in these AI-powered environments.
Martin anticipates that attribution capabilities will become more robust over time—showing how AI conversation functions as a conversion assist earlier in the customer journey. For now, reporting remains limited, and the infrastructure to meaningfully capture that influence has yet to become a standard for continued ad optimization.
“If I were a brand,” says Martin, “I would not be comfortable with the high price tag for early advertising without a strong measurement framework in place.”
For most advertisers today, direct access to AI ad environments remains limited. However, there’s still plenty that teams can do to prepare for when inventory becomes more accessible.
On the paid side, the immediate priority should be awareness and readiness. Monitoring how ads are triggered in chatbots (e.g., query types and intent signals) provides a useful foundation before access opens more broadly. And maintaining paid search presence also remains important: Ads appearing alongside AI-generated summaries can deliver brand impressions even without a click, and those impressions still influence decisions.
The more immediate opportunity, however, is organic. Large language models decide which brands to surface, cite, and recommend in their responses, and that process is already happening now, independent of any paid placement. Optimizing for that inclusion, increasingly referred to as generative engine optimization (GEO), means prioritizing structured, factual content, clear product and FAQ pages, and content formatted in ways AI systems can parse and surface reliably.
“If an LLM has no reason to include you in results, you will be left behind,” Martin says.
The intersection of organic and paid strategy in these environments also warrants attention, with Martin noting that GEO is “muddying the waters with how we’ve traditionally differentiated SEO and SEM.” Teams that have treated organic and paid search as separate disciplines will need to think about how those strategies align in environments where the same AI system may determine what it recommends organically and what it surfaces as a sponsored result.
And as the channel continues to mature, AI media advertising will also add new complexity to an already fragmented landscape. Each platform operates on different formats, measurement frameworks, and reporting standards, meaning that teams managing presence across ChatGPT, Google AIOs, and other emerging inventory will be navigating multiple systems simultaneously. That complexity will make it all the more critical for advertisers to seek out platforms that allow them to unify budget, performance, and strategy in one central location—making it easier to respond quickly as inventory expands and the rules continue to evolve.
For advertisers building toward long-term readiness and resilience, staying updated on the latest AI media advertising developments, diversifying measurement frameworks, prioritizing content that AI systems can find and use, and maintaining presence across channels where messaging remains controllable is key. AI search ad spending—spanning both generative AI platforms and AI-powered search summaries—is projected to grow from $2.08 billion in 2026 to $25.93 billion in 2029.
Though the environments driving that growth are still taking shape, advertisers who invest in understanding them now will be better positioned to compete as access widens and the rules become clearer.
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For a deeper look at how AI is reshaping the future of search and what it means for media strategy, check out AI and the Future of Search Engine Marketing.