How AI Is Reshaping Advertising Strategies

The most interesting shift in advertising right now is the shift from “Here’s an ad” to “Here’s help”, thanks to agentic AI. Microsoft Advertising’s latest updates shared by CVP Kya Sainsbury-Carter point to a future where ads behave more like helpful nudges than interruptions. Think: - A travel ad going beyond showing you a beach to booking your flight. - A B2B campaign going beyond pitching a product to answering your procurement questions. - A retail banner going beyond promoting a sale to remembering your size, your style, and your last return. Microsoft’s pivot away from traditional DSPs signals a belief that the next era of advertising will be built with AI agents that act, adapt, and assist. Forget about being “personalized.” That's so yesterday. Now, it’s about being useful in the moment. Conversational. Context-aware. Capable of doing something, not just saying something. That’s a big leap. And it’s going to change how we brief, how we measure, and how we build. If you’re in marketing or media, here’s one small way to start preparing: - Pick one of your current campaigns. - Now reframe the creative brief from a message to deliver to a task to help someone complete. - What changes? Make note. This can become a reality. If you want to go deeper, read Kya's post here: https://lnkd.in/dveqDneU and follow leaders actually building this such as Paul Longo, Tim Frank, and Pedro Bojikian. #hicm #AI #AIinAdvertising #AgenticAI

Mark Zuckerberg just outlined Meta’s bold vision for the future of advertising in a new Stratechery interview—and it’s unlike anything we’ve seen before. Here’s the punchline for marketers: 1. The “Ultimate Business Agent” “Here’s my goal. Here’s my budget. Go get it.” That’s where Meta is heading. No creative. No targeting. No measurement. AI handles the entire funnel—automated, optimized, and outcome-based. 2. Creative Built by AI Meta is approaching the ability to auto-generate ad creatives at scale. Want more control? Upload your own. But increasingly, you won’t have to. 3. Targeting Is Basically Solved Zuckerberg: Meta’s system finds high-intent audiences better than humans. Manual targeting is increasingly discouraged. 4. Results-Based Billing From impressions → outcomes. Measurement is now embedded, not bolted on. But Here’s the Caveat: AI Without Strategy Is Just Noise at Scale AI makes decisions based on patterns—not business context, brand nuance, or customer empathy. Let it run unsupervised, and you risk: - Wasted spend on false positives - Brand-damaging creative hallucinations - Short-term optimization that kills long-term equity The real winners? Not just businesses who use Meta’s tools—but those who understand how to guide them. Because even the smartest AI still needs strategic guardrails. Otherwise, you’re automating mediocrity. If you’re a performance marketer, your job isn’t going away—it’s evolving. You won’t be setting bids or building audiences. You’ll be crafting positioning, auditing outputs, and fine-tuning the machine. The future of ads is AI-assisted. The future of great ads? Still very human.

Mark Zuckerberg just outlined a future where Meta's AI handles everything from creative generation to campaign optimization to purchase decisions. His vision: businesses connect their bank accounts, state their objectives, and "read the results we spit out." The technical architecture he's describing would fundamentally reshape how advertising technology works. But there's a critical flaw in this approach that creates an opportunity for the next generation of advertising infrastructure. The trust problem isn't just about measurement transparency—though agency executives are rightfully skeptical of platforms "checking their own homework." The deeper issue is institutional knowledge transfer and real-time brand governance. Enterprise brands have decades of learned context about what works, what doesn't, and what could damage their reputation. This isn't just about brand safety filters. It's about nuanced understanding of seasonal messaging, competitive positioning, cultural sensitivities, and customer journey orchestration that can't be reverse-engineered from campaign performance data alone. If AI truly automates the entire advertising stack, brands will need their own AI agents—not just dashboards or approval workflows, but intelligent systems that can negotiate with vendor AI in real-time. Think of it as API-level conversation between two AI systems where the brand's AI has veto power over creative decisions, placement choices, and budget allocation. This creates fascinating technical challenges: How do you architect AI-to-AI communication protocols that maintain brand governance while enabling real-time optimization? How do you build systems that can incorporate institutional knowledge without exposing competitive advantages to vendor platforms? We're talking about building advertising technology that functions more like autonomous diplomatic negotiation than traditional campaign management. For platform companies pushing toward full automation, the question becomes whether they're building systems that enterprise clients can actually trust with their brands and budgets. For independent technology builders, there's an opportunity to create the middleware that makes AI-powered advertising actually viable for sophisticated marketers. The future of advertising isn't just about better algorithms—it's about building trust architectures that let those algorithms work together.

AI MEETS AN INDUSTRY: Advertising & Creativity Cannes Lions was an eye opener of how profoundly AI is transforming advertising: 1) A production studio in your pocket - Jamie Allan (NVIDIA) showed how AI evolves beyond agentic gains understanding of the physical world, with NVIDIA building industry specific solutions. Chad Nelson (OpenAI) shows this toolkit in action, demoing a fully produced car ad created entirely from a 3D model. Dynamic camera movements showcase the car in a desert, tundra, city. Anyone can make within hours what would have cost months & millions. 2) AI automates production - we can now mass-create ads for e-commerce. Tools like Higgsfield AI let brands create individual ads for thousands of products in permutations for each target group. Shook Digital enables AI-powered planning, buying, and creative execution from a single AdTech SaaS platform. ModelManagement.com allows real people to become models, be discovered as actors for ad shoots, and (if desired) generate AI videos using their own likeness. Brands gain authentic actors, can micro target with video, producing and iterating rapidly. 3) AI powers product creation - At the Brand Innovators panel tennis legend Sloane Stephens shared how she built direct-to-consumer body care brand Doc & Glo from a real player pain point - and now she can generate compelling product images & ads in hours, not weeks. She's got a pick of next level tools to scale, using TikTok and Instagram shops, or tapping into platforms like Reddit, Snap & Pinterest to amplify her message, drive discovery and user insights. (Gabriel, Aarti, Martin) June '25 - the state of Ads in the age of AI: 1) Ad production is more affordable, powerful, and accessible than ever. 2) It’s easier than ever to deliver the right message to the right audience at the right moment What does not change? The principles of craft, with the customer at the center! As Uber’s Paul Wright 🌻 said: “Keep it native to the consumer’s needs. If your next decision enhances their experience, you’re on the right track.” Next time you wait for an Uber, and time flies by as you engage with a playable ad—you’ll see what he means What to do next? Start learning & experimenting - Kristen Nolte (SVP, Dell) shared how she’s transforming her org into a learning organism, focused on outcomes. Her insight: the line between B2B and B2C is gone—every organization should constantly be in discovery, testing, and iteration mode. Rhys Nölke breaks this down into 1) building expertise, 2) forming partnerships, 3) Co-Innovation & piloting Lorry Destainville (TikTok) and Dave Osborn (Microsoft) shared at The AI Advantage panel, how we can apply this mindset individually. Skip a meeting and send your notetaker to get you the action items. At an event? Record thoughts with voice AI while they’re fresh - giving you better material to generate summaries or emails later In short: There’s never been a more exciting time to be in advertising! Let's create!