Advertisers seek to capitalise on the promise of AI

When McDonald’s in the Netherlands released a Christmas advert made using AI last December, it did not go to plan.

The 45-second film was mocked online as “creepy” and poorly made. Viewers criticised its visuals and its message encouraging people to spend the holidays at a McDonald’s restaurant. Within days, it was taken down. The company later described the episode as “an important learning as we explore the effective use of AI”.

The fiasco at one of the world’s biggest brands offers a glimpse of the minefield that AI poses for advertising. Marketers are already widely adopting tools that can produce content faster and more cheaply than ever before. But they risk alienating audiences by flooding the market with low-quality output.

Consumer fatigue with AI “slop” has become so widespread that some brands, including Porsche and Polaroid, emphasise that their advertising imagery is made by humans.

The proliferation of AI content is also creating another challenge: trust. The same tools that make advertising cheaper and more scalable may also erode consumer confidence, particularly if high-profile mis-steps reinforce perceptions that AI-generated campaigns are inauthentic or unreliable.

More broadly, the industry is grappling with a deeper question: is AI simply making advertising more efficient, or fundamentally changing how it works?

As research group MoffettNathanson put it, the impact is likely to come “gradually, then suddenly”.

Signs of change are already emerging. OpenAI and other developers are experimenting with how to monetise chatbot interfaces, while traditional advertising groups are doubling down on scarce, high-value assets such as live sports.

For some, AI represents a fundamental break. David Jones, founder of generative AI marketing firm Brandtech Group, argues the technology is not just another channel but a shift that touches every part of the industry.

“Every piece of content you’re creating today is also a brief to someone’s model,” he says.

The most radical implication, he suggests, is the rise of “agentic commerce”, in which consumers delegate their shopping decisions to AI assistants. Rather than browsing themselves, people may ask an AI to book a hotel or recommend a product.

In that scenario, advertising would shift from capturing our attention to influencing machine recommendations. Brands would need to ensure they are not just visible to consumers, but favoured by Anthropic’s Claude or OpenAI’s ChatGPT.

AI is already transforming production. Tools can generate marketing copy, images and video at a fraction of the traditional cost, enabling more personalised and localised campaigns.

There’s not a single thing we do in marketing that we won’t use AI for

For Jones, the direction is clear: “There’s not a single thing we do in marketing that we won’t use AI for,” he says.

Others take a more measured view. Brian Wieser, an advertising analyst and former WPP executive, argues that the most immediate impact is on process.

“The mechanics of the business are more impacted than anything else,” he says. AI is accelerating the automation of workflows, enabling marketers to apply more data and run campaigns more efficiently — such as trying out thousands of ad variations and automatically picking those that work best.

In doing so, it largely reinforces trends already under way. Chief among them is the shift towards performance marketing — campaigns designed to deliver measurable outcomes such as clicks or sales — which has favoured platforms such as Google, Meta and TikTok.

AI strengthens this model rather than disrupting it, says Wieser. The big tech platforms that already dominate digital advertising are well positioned to extend their lead.

That view is supported by market data. MoffettNathanson estimates that Google, Meta, Amazon and Microsoft alone now capture 65 per cent of all US ad spending, gaining share through improvements in targeting, engagement and AI-driven creative. The rest of the market is left competing over a stagnant pool of revenue.

Early evidence suggests the transformation is uneven. Analysis from Wieser’s consultancy, Madison and Wall, shows headcount across 30 large independent agency groups rising 2.5 per cent year-on-year in early 2026, with growth mainly among larger players.

Jones argues that the big established advertising and marketing groups are poorly equipped for an AI-first world. Wieser, by contrast, sees a more resilient future for traditional operators.

“Anywhere you get complexity, human navigators are going to be more important, not less,” he says, describing agencies as “the cockroaches of the industry — they will outlast us all.”

The changes under way are unlikely to eliminate advertising so much as reshape it. In the near term, AI is making campaigns cheaper, faster and more measurable — reinforcing the dominance of big platforms. But as AI content proliferates and consumer scepticism grows, there may be a renewed premium on trust and human judgment.

“We’ve never had a technology revolution moving this fast,” says Jones. 

If that is the case, the future of advertising may not be defined by AI alone, but by how brands balance automation with authenticity.