Report: AI shaping modern advertising
January 22, 2026
Mediaocean, the software and AI partner for omnichannel advertising, has released its 2026 H1 Advertising Outlook Report, revealing how marketers are entering 2026 with renewed confidence in digital media investment even as marketers face growing pressure to turn AI enthusiasm into real-world execution.
Based on insights from hundreds of marketers, the bi-annual report shows AI evolving from an experimental capability into a core force shaping modern advertising, while also exposing critical gaps in how systems, data, and workflows are connected.
For the third consecutive period, Gen AI ranks as the most important consumer trend, cited by 70 per cent of marketers, underscoring its growing influence on how people discover content, engage with brands, and make decisions. While enthusiasm for AI remains high, adoption patterns reveal a steep maturity curve. Even though 43 per cent of marketers are using AI for data analysis and 43 per cent for market research, adoption drops as AI moves closer to execution, with 33 per cent using AI for creative development and only 19 per cent for campaign orchestration, highlighting a gap between insight and impact.
The report also points to a growing orchestration challenge as media channels proliferate, and AI becomes more deeply embedded in marketing workflows. While 86 per cent of marketers say cross-channel orchestration is important, only 10 per cent report having fully unified ad tech systems in place, creating friction not just in scaling AI, but in coordinating planning, activation, measurement, and optimisation across increasingly complex media environments.
Additional findings in the report include:
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Media investment is rebounding selectively, with planned spend increases concentrated in CTV and digital video (63 per cent respectively), social platforms (61 per cent), and AI-driven media/ads on AI agents (54 per cent), while traditional channels such as print and linear TV continue to face pressure.
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AI maturity is becoming a central focus, as marketers shift from experimentation to execution, citing data quality or access issues (42 per cent) and difficulty connecting AI insights across systems (41 per cent) as the biggest barriers to scaling AI effectively.
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Marketers are shifting from channel-level optimisation to system-level intelligence, with 39 per cent prioritising AI and 39 per cent prioritising cross-platform orchestration, signaling a move away from siloed point solutions toward more connected and adaptive infrastructures.
“As AI becomes more deeply woven into the media lifecycle, the advantage won’t come from adopting even more tools – it will come from orchestrating them,” said Aaron Goldman, CMO, Mediaocean. “This research shows marketers are ready to move from experimentation to execution, but fragmented systems are slowing progress. Smarter, more connected foundations are what turn AI insights into action at scale.”
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