Online advertising quarterly: Rising competition steals AI’s thunder
Advertising is in a structural shift due to AI and the video boom. AI tools are growing the reach and capabilities of smaller advertisers, fuelling robust demand.
WPP must challenge Publicis’s dominance in 2026 and show it is positioned to benefit from AI even as Omnicom and IPG combine to create a new global behemoth.
Amazon is taking the fight to adtech by strengthening its connected TV and retail media positions. Adtech is building partnerships and becoming more end-to-end in response.
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Defined roles within the advertising ecosystem are a thing of the past: everyone is adapting by building out functionality to claim share as the constants underpinning advertising—attribution, discoverability, and regulation—change.
There is a new wave of M&A, partnerships and developments from agencies, adtech, and big tech in data and AI, as all sides position themselves to reshape the terms of online advertising at a time of maximum uncertainty.
Big tech platforms are leveraging their scale and AI investments in attempts to reset broad swathes of the market. Publishers are exposed; their way forward relies on asserting their value through direct audiences and collaboration on sector-wide innovations
Advertising has outgrown the UK's wider economy by 20 percentage points since 2000 thanks to online and advertisers in export markets, especially China, targeting sales in the import-dependent UK market.
If current trends held to 2030, advertising would reach 1.7% of UK GDP, over 50% higher than 2019—we believe this to be the least likely scenario as the UK already sustains higher ad intensity than major markets.
The next recession could be the moment when online ads growth corrects and then reverts to low single-digit growth in line with the economy. A 'soft landing' is also possible, while a surprise outperformance would require more drastic structural shifts.
Enormous AI capacity unlocked by 2026, combined with investor pressure for returns, is stimulating a rapid escalation in AI products that could spawn an AI ‘super app’ ecosystem that supplants the world of search and links
There is no turning back: Google is transforming search and YouTube while OpenAI and Perplexity launch AI browsers to capture user attention. OpenAI’s ChatGPT agent moves it further from Microsoft, who is yet to finalise their long-term relationship
Meta may pivot to a closed AI model without an ‘anchor tenant’—feeding Mark Zuckerberg’s ambition to revolutionise advertising. Meta is positioning new AI supercharged hardware in the consumer space designed to eclipse the smartphone
Defined roles within the advertising ecosystem are a thing of the past: everyone is adapting by building out functionality to claim share as the constants underpinning advertising—attribution, discoverability, and regulation—change.
There is a new wave of M&A, partnerships and developments from agencies, adtech, and big tech in data and AI, as all sides position themselves to reshape the terms of online advertising at a time of maximum uncertainty.
Big tech platforms are leveraging their scale and AI investments in attempts to reset broad swathes of the market. Publishers are exposed; their way forward relies on asserting their value through direct audiences and collaboration on sector-wide innovationsAdvertising has outgrown the UK's wider economy by 20 percentage points since 2000 thanks to online and advertisers in export markets, especially China, targeting sales in the import-dependent UK market.
If current trends held to 2030, advertising would reach 1.7% of UK GDP, over 50% higher than 2019—we believe this to be the least likely scenario as the UK already sustains higher ad intensity than major markets.
The next recession could be the moment when online ads growth corrects and then reverts to low single-digit growth in line with the economy. A 'soft landing' is also possible, while a surprise outperformance would require more drastic structural shifts.Enormous AI capacity unlocked by 2026, combined with investor pressure for returns, is stimulating a rapid escalation in AI products that could spawn an AI ‘super app’ ecosystem that supplants the world of search and links
There is no turning back: Google is transforming search and YouTube while OpenAI and Perplexity launch AI browsers to capture user attention. OpenAI’s ChatGPT agent moves it further from Microsoft, who is yet to finalise their long-term relationship
Meta may pivot to a closed AI model without an ‘anchor tenant’—feeding Mark Zuckerberg’s ambition to revolutionise advertising. Meta is positioning new AI supercharged hardware in the consumer space designed to eclipse the smartphone