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AI Trusted Less Than Social Media and Airlines, With Grok Placing Last, Survey Says

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By Ty Pendlebury

More Americans are concerned about the loss of personal interaction from AI than they are about potential job loss.

Google Gemini is the most trusted AI platform among its competition, but many people still have concerns about the technology, according to an American Customer Satisfaction Index poll released Thursday.

In ACSI’s results, AI scored an overall customer satisfaction score of 73 on a scale of 0 to 100, which the authors noted was slightly below social media (74), airlines and mortgage lenders, but in line with energy utilities.

Of the five platforms mentioned in the survey, Google Gemini led with 76, followed by Microsoft Copilot (74), Claude and ChatGPT (both 73), and Grok and Perplexity (both 71). Meanwhile, TikTok (77) and YouTube (78) both scored better than the AI platforms.

Gemini is one of the most prolific AI services, with access via smart speakers, TVs, phones and computers, while most ChatGPT users access the AI tool via the ChatGPT website or mobile app, and Grok via social media platform X.

The ACSI poll found that 43% of respondents said reduced human-to-human interaction is their main concern, followed by job loss for future generations (37%) and their own job risk (31%), based on interviews with 2,711 US adults.

Baby Boomers were the most sceptical generation in the poll, with 35% saying they are very concerned about AI’s effects, compared to just 6% who view it extremely favourably.

Disconnect between AI adoption and perception

While platforms such as ChatGPT have up to 1 billion weekly users, there is still a disconnect between AI’s adoption and public perception of it, which is driven by concerns over privacy, the spread of misinformation and the loss of jobs.

“Consumers spent the last decade learning to distrust how social media platforms handle their data, and AI’s privacy scores suggest they’re carrying that scepticism forward,” said Forrest Morgeson, associate professor of marketing at Michigan State University and director of research emeritus at the ACSI.

21% reported an “extremely favourable” outlook toward AI, while an equal 21% said they are “very concerned about the consequences.”

These results were in line with another poll published by YouGov this week, which found that only 29% think the positive effects of AI outweigh the negative ones, while 36% think its net effects are negative.

It’s worth noting that more than half of the people interviewed (56%) had no recent experience with AI, but of the 44% who did, half of them use AI at least once a day, and the usage went up with people who earned over $100,000 a year.

Last month, an NBC poll suggested that AI was one of the least-liked things in America, but it was still more popular than the Democratic Party.

TV and home video editor Ty Pendlebury joined CNET Australia in 2006, and moved to New York City to be a part of CNET in 2011. He tests, reviews and writes about the latest TVs and audio equipment. When he’s not playing Call of Duty he’s eating whatever cuisine he can get his hands on. He has a cat named after one of the best TVs ever made. 

Feature image credit: Getty/SOPA Images

By Ty Pendlebury

Sourced from C NET

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These Gorillaz x Spotify ads are hiding something really cool

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The band breaks the mould to promote their new album, The Mountain.

In today’s advertising world, plain ol’ billboards don’t seem to cut the mustard anymore. With this in mind, Spotify has teamed up with virtual brand Gorillaz to create an immersive treasure-hunt campaign, marking their new album, The Mountain.

Reimagining the static, one-sided nature of traditional billboard ads, the Spotify x Gorillaz campaign is all about creating an immersive fan-first experience. Vivid, playful and interactive, the new campaign is a prime example of how audiences are increasingly shaping the brand world.

Bringing Gorillaz’s digital world to the streets of London, the album promo campaign features custom murals starring each of the iconic Gorillaz band members. Hidden within each artwork is a QR code that unlocks a real-world treasure hunt for fans. When all four are found, fans have the opportunity to win tour tickets, merch, and exclusive signed memorabilia.

Spotify Gorillaz Character Match brand activation
(Image credit: Spotify)

The artwork will be appearing in Peckham, Shoreditch, Hackney, and Portobello Road, alongside a digital activation for fans in the U.K., U.S., Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Mexico, Brazil, Italy, Poland, and Spain who can’t make the pilgrimage. Gorillaz Character Match uses users’ listening history to match them with one of the four characters. Created in collaboration with Gorillaz’s own creative team, the custom character cards also unlock a personalised playlist featuring tracks from The Mountain alongside curated favourites from the band’s discography.

What do you think?
Who’s your favourite Gorillaz character?
2D, obviously
Noodle, is that even a question?
Murdoc, I love that strange guy!
Russel of course, my under appreciated king

Feature image credit: Spotify

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Natalie Fear is Creative Bloq’s staff writer. With an eye for trending topics and a passion for internet culture, she brings you the latest in art and design news. Natalie also runs Creative Bloq’s 5 Questions series, spotlighting diverse talent across the creative industries. Outside of work, she loves all things literature and music (although she’s partial to a spot of TikTok brain rot).

Sourced from CREATIVE BLOQ

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How to Create Adverts That Convert : Tracking, Trials & Iteration in 2026

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Dive into this step-by-step guide to uncover actionable strategies for improving your app ad performance. You’ll explore how to use platform-specific features, such as video ads on YouTube or targeted campaigns on Instagram, to reach your audience effectively. Additionally, learn how to interpret key data points, like trial-to-paid conversion rates, to fine-tune your approach and maximize ROI. By the end, you’ll have a clearer understanding of how to align your advertising efforts with your app’s growth goals.

Understanding the Challenges of Paid Marketing

TL;DR Key Takeaways :

  • Data-Driven Marketing: Successful app advertising relies on collecting and analysing user data, such as sign-ups, trial starts and purchases, to refine strategies and improve campaign performance.
  • Platform-Specific Strategies: Choosing the right advertising platforms (e.g., Google Ads, YouTube, influencers) and tailoring campaigns to their strengths is essential for maximizing ROI.
  • Iterative Improvement: Continuously optimize your app and marketing efforts based on user feedback and performance data, especially during the critical first three months post-launch.
  • Trial Systems and Conversion Rates: Offering trials helps assess product-market fit, with high trial-to-paid conversion rates indicating strong user satisfaction and app value.
  • Long-Term ROI Focus: Paid marketing often involves initial financial losses, but a strategic, patient approach can lead to sustainable growth and improved returns over time.

Paid app marketing often begins with significant upfront costs and limited immediate returns. Early campaigns may feel like a financial setback, but their primary purpose is to gather valuable data rather than generate immediate profit. This initial phase is essential for understanding your audience and refining your strategy. Without this foundational knowledge, future campaigns are unlikely to succeed. Think of these early efforts as an investment in learning about your market, a critical step toward long-term success.

The challenges of paid marketing also include navigating a competitive landscape, where users are inundated with advertisements. To stand out, your campaigns must be highly targeted and tailored to your audience’s preferences. This requires a commitment to continuous testing and optimization, making sure that your ads resonate with potential users.

The Role of Data Collection and Tracking

Data serves as the backbone of any successful marketing campaign. To make informed decisions, it’s crucial to track key user actions that directly impact your app’s performance. These actions include:

  • Sign-ups: Monitoring how many users register for your app provides insight into the effectiveness of your ad copy and landing pages.
  • Trial starts: Tracking trial initiations helps gauge user interest and the appeal of your app’s features.
  • Purchases: Understanding purchase behaviour allows you to measure the direct return on your advertising investment.

Tools like Google Analytics G4 and Facebook Pixel are indispensable for tracking these events. Additionally, integrating metadata, such as pricing tiers, plan types, or user demographics, offers deeper insights into user behaviour. This data enables you to build a detailed profile of your audience, allowing for more precise targeting and improved campaign performance.

Here are more guides from our previous articles and guides related to AI marketing that you may find helpful.

Building a Data-Driven Profile

The early stages of paid marketing focus on gathering data to identify your ideal customer profile. Advertising algorithms on platforms like Google Ads, Facebook, or Instagram require time to learn and optimize. This process, often referred to as the “learning phase,” can take weeks or even months. During this period, the algorithms analyse user interactions with your ads to refine targeting and improve performance.

By analysing the data collected, you can identify patterns and trends that inform your marketing strategy. For example, you may discover that certain demographics respond better to specific messaging or that particular ad formats drive higher engagement. Armed with this information, you can refine your campaigns to increase conversion rates and reduce customer acquisition costs.

Choosing the Right Advertising Platforms

Selecting the right advertising platforms is crucial for maximizing your return on investment. Each platform offers unique advantages and understanding these can help you allocate your budget effectively. Here’s a closer look at some popular options:

  • X (formerly Twitter): This platform is ideal for building brand awareness and establishing credibility. Its real-time nature allows for quick engagement with your audience.
  • YouTube and Google Ads: These platforms excel at driving conversions and attracting high-quality traffic. Video ads on YouTube, in particular, can showcase your app’s features in an engaging and visually appealing way.
  • Influencers: Partnering with influencers can help you establish trust and create authentic content that resonates with their followers. This approach is especially effective for niche markets.

By using the strengths of each platform, you can reach your target audience more effectively and achieve better results.

Trial Systems and Conversion Rates

Trial systems are a powerful tool for assessing product-market fit and driving user engagement. By allowing potential users to experience your app before committing to a purchase, you can gather valuable insights into their preferences and pain points. A strong trial-to-paid conversion rate, such as 43%—indicates that your app meets user needs and delivers value.

In addition to measuring conversion rates, trial systems can highlight areas for improvement. For example, if users frequently abandon the trial without upgrading, this may signal issues with your app’s usability or perceived value. Addressing these concerns can help you refine your product and marketing strategy, ultimately boosting user retention and satisfaction.

The Importance of Iterative Improvement

The first three months after launching your app are critical for refining both your product and marketing efforts. During this period, actively engage with users to gather feedback and identify areas for improvement. Iterative improvement involves making incremental changes based on user input and performance data, making sure that your app continues to meet user expectations.

This approach not only enhances the user experience but also increases the likelihood of long-term success. By continuously optimizing your app and marketing campaigns, you can stay ahead of the competition and adapt to changing market conditions.

Recognizing Product-Market Fit

Achieving product-market fit is a significant milestone for any app. It indicates that your app resonates with its target audience and has the potential for sustainable growth. Key indicators of product-market fit include:

  • High trial-to-paid conversion rates: This suggests that users find value in your app and are willing to pay for it.
  • Low churn rates: Retaining users over time demonstrates that your app meets their needs and expectations.
  • Organic growth: Word-of-mouth referrals and positive reviews signal strong user satisfaction and trust.

These metrics provide a clear picture of your app’s performance and its potential for long-term success.

Budgeting and ROI Expectations

Paid marketing often involves an initial period of financial loss. For example, spending $10,000 on ads might yield $5,000 in monthly recurring revenue during the early stages. However, this investment is necessary to acquire market insights and build a customer base. Over time, as your campaigns become more targeted and effective, your return on investment will improve.

It’s important to set realistic expectations and remain patient during this process. By focusing on data-driven decisions and continuous improvement, you can gradually increase your ROI and achieve sustainable growth.

Making Strategic Decisions

After three months of paid marketing, it’s essential to analyse your data and determine the next steps. Key metrics, such as churn rate, trial conversion and user engagement, will guide your decisions. Depending on the results, you may choose to:

  • Refine your strategy: Adjust your targeting and messaging to better align with your audience’s preferences.
  • Iterate on your product: Address user feedback to enhance your app’s features and usability.
  • Discontinue underperforming campaigns: Redirect resources to more effective strategies.

This data-driven approach ensures that your decisions are informed and aligned with your goals.

Key Takeaways for Success

To make app ads work effectively, focus on these principles:

  • Prioritize data-driven decisions: Use analytics to guide your strategy and optimize performance.
  • Target niche markets: Concentrate your efforts on specific audiences to maximize your marketing budget.
  • Use organic growth: Encourage word-of-mouth referrals and build a loyal user base.

By adopting a patient, strategic approach, you can overcome the challenges of paid marketing and achieve sustainable growth for your software application.

Media Credit: Corbin

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How Direct Mail Can Win Back Marketers In A Volatile Digital Economy

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By John Hall

Digital advertising seems to be everywhere. You turn on your laptop, only to be greeted by promo messages from the manufacturer about your expired warranty. The web browser you launched seconds ago? Well, now all the pop-ups are trying to convince you to buy or try the latest invention. And don’t forget about all the app notifications on your smart devices and the emails waiting to be read (more like deleted) in your inbox.

It’s exhausting. Coined as digital fatigue, the mental overload caused by constant marketing messages in online spaces is why effectiveness is declining. Although global digital marketing spend is forecasted to reach $936 billion in 2029, customer acquisition costs have gone up 222% in the past 10 years. In response, marketers are turning back the clock, increasingly relying on direct mail to cut through the noise.

I was recently speaking to Eric Goodstadt, CEO of Upswell Marketing, about the shift. Upswell Marketing is the parent company of Taradel, which helps small businesses launch direct mail and digital ad campaigns. The return to direct mail doesn’t mean companies are ready to abandon digital. But it does mean marketers are aiming to restore balance in an unpredictable landscape.

Hedging Against Digital Volatility

Goodstadt recently explained to me how digital has become less predictable and often less efficient due to rising costs for impressions, privacy concerns and a host of tech and economic challenges. Direct mail, on the other hand, offers deterministic targeting without relying on cookies or algorithms.

Deterministic targeting runs on verified first-party data, such as interaction or purchase history. It’s information someone has willingly given to your company. Compare that to third-party data, where you’re not sure how it was gathered or whether it’s relevant to your outreach efforts. In the past, digital platforms had the advantages of scale, speed and targeting.

But changes in privacy features, including Apple’s range of controls across apps and its Safari web browser, mean more limitations and higher costs. Channel diversification offers marketers a way to hedge against this unpredictability. Direct mail is no longer seen as a legacy tactic, but a way to stabilize your marketing mix.

I think of it as a way to balance your portfolio. You dedicate a percentage of your outreach to digital while (re)introducing a percentage to direct mail. Marketers aren’t solely relying on third-party cookies and algorithms for audience reach. With direct mail, there’s a higher level of control, precision and predictability, leading to better performance in customer acquisition.

Driving Results With Frequency And Familiarity

USPS cites findings from the National Association of Advertisers about the ROI of direct mail versus digital channels, such as paid search and email. Direct mail’s average ROI of 112% beats email’s 93% and paid search’s 88%. Goodstadt and I agree that a reason is the familiarity direct mail builds with an audience over time.

It’s easy to dismiss, block and ignore digital ads. Physical mail can’t be brushed aside as easily because it’s tangible.

“Consistency builds familiarity and trust,” Goodstadt said. “We typically see strong results with one touch every three to five weeks.”

Nonetheless, hitting frequency targets isn’t sufficient. I’ve found you also need variety. Otherwise, you fall into the same campaign fatigue trap digital ad bombardment creates. You want to mix up your creative, promos and formats to keep your touchpoints fresh.

By mixing it up, marketers replicate digital marketing best practices. Yet, they benefit from direct mail’s less competitive environment. Marketers stand a better chance of getting their audiences’ attention because the physical inbox is less crowded than the digital one.

Gaining A Surprising Edge With Younger Audiences

It seems counterintuitive. Why would younger audiences resonate more with a marketing tactic from the pre-internet explosion age than with digital? After all, they’ve only known online marketing as the norm.

Yet, the stats tell a different story. Gen Z and Millennials engage more with direct mail than Gen Xers or Boomers. Eighty-five percent of those younger cohorts interact with direct mail, partly because it’s novel to them. They didn’t grow up in the days when postcards and mailers were one of the few means of direct outreach.

Industries with local and personal connections tend to perform stronger with younger audiences. Direct mail from gyms, wellness providers, in-home services, home improvement and quick-service restaurants shows solid promise. Proximity and trust are factors behind the edge, and direct mail reinforces both. For these categories, the physical inbox can drive higher results than the digital newsletter.

Creating A Winning Formula

Design and interactive formats play a role in the success of a direct mail campaign. Overly polished and corporate-speak creative displays are going to fall flat. Authenticity and clear, concise messaging tend to win.

Goodstadt and I have seen higher engagement with interactive formats, such as oversized postcards or QR-code driven experiences. A QR code from a direct mailer can return an audience to an abandoned cart or offer a personalized discount to place an online order. But you want to make the value proposition immediately clear. The call to action should be simple and seamless.

When I was checking into current interest in print marketing, SelfEmployed editor-in-chief Renee Johnson said combining direct mail with digital tracking is a tactic gaining traction.

“We’ve seen interest in direct mail marketing from younger business leaders and solopreneurs who have discovered legacy channels like direct mail aren’t ineffective in the modern age,” said Johnson. “What’s different now is the integration of digital tracking, which changes direct mail from a general population blast into a precise, ROI-driven strategy.”

Omnichannel integration plays a key role in direct mail and will continue to. Connecting direct mail campaigns to measurable outcomes while improving targeting will become more of a focus. Synchronizing data from point-of-sale and CRM systems like HubSpot will increase in importance to overcome direct mail’s weaknesses. Lack of accountability and difficulties with measurement are drawbacks that advanced personalization can counterbalance.

Direct Mail’s Advantage In A Fragmented Future

The fundamental challenge marketers face continues to remain the same. How do you effectively break through the noise? Direct mail can be a compelling answer. With the channel’s tangibility, precise targeting and advancing improvements in measurability, direct mail can serve as a complement to the digital realm.

I believe bringing direct mail back to the marketing mix will help brands create more resilient customer acquisition strategies. Outcome predictability will offer marketers stability in an increasingly uncertain environment. The physical inbox won’t be a nostalgic relic, but a competitive advantage.

Feature image credit: Getty

By John Hall

Find John Hall on LinkedIn and X. Visit John’s website.

Sourced from Forbes

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How Agencies Survive AI, According To The Man Who Built Advertising’s Biggest Empire

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By Jodie Cook,

Summary

Sir Martin Sorrell advises agencies to adapt to AI by implementing five key strategies: compress creative production with output-based pricing, personalize content at scale, become validators of AI-generated work, drive radical efficiency by automating internal processes, and democratize knowledge within the organization.

The old way of running an agency is dead. If you own or operate a services business, whether that’s an agency, a consultancy, or any company where clients pay for your expertise, the ground is shifting under your feet. AI can create content faster and cheaper than your team. Clients expect more for less. Production lines that took weeks now take hours.

Agencies in the next ten years will look nothing like agencies in the last ten. The same is true for anyone in the knowledge economy who serves clients for a living.

I sat down with Sir Martin Sorrell at FII Priority Miami 2026 to ask him how agencies survive what’s coming. Sorrell is the founder and executive chairman of S4 Capital, the digital-first marketing services company operating under the brand Monks. Before that, he built WPP from a £1 million shell company into the world’s largest advertising group, with over £15 billion in revenue and 200,000 people across 113 countries. He ran it as CEO for 33 years, making him the longest-serving chief executive in the FTSE 100. If anyone knows what happens when an industry gets disrupted, it’s him.

I founded and sold a social media agency. Looking back at my team of 20 people, I can see which roles AI would have replaced and which ones would have become more valuable. Sorrell sees the same pattern playing out across the entire industry. When I asked him what agencies should do now, he gave me a 5-step process for staying relevant. This applies to any business where you trade expertise for money, and it starts with client work.

5 ways to keep your agency alive in the age of AI

Compress your creative production

AI is already cutting the cost and time of visualisation, copywriting, and content production. Sorrell was direct about the business model problem this creates. “We’re paid on time taken,” he said. “So you have to shift the model to output-based pricing, either on a unit asset basis or subscription.” The agency that charges by the hour while AI does the work in minutes will lose every time.

Audit how you charge. If your revenue depends on how long tasks take your team, you’re exposed. 

Maybe you’re the founder who bills 40 hours for a content package that AI helps you produce in 10. That gap is your vulnerability and your opportunity. Close it before your clients do the maths.

Personalise at scale

The second step is using AI to produce huge volumes of personalised assets. Where you once created one campaign and hoped it landed, now you produce dozens of variations tested against specific audiences. Sorrell sees this as an expansion of opportunity. More content, more formats, more touchpoints. The business model shifts again toward output pricing because the volume of work explodes.

Think about your own content output. If you’re still producing a single version of each deliverable, you’re leaving performance on the table. Use AI to create variations. Test them. Let the data tell you what resonates with each segment of your audience. The agencies and consultancies that think bigger about what they can offer, producing ten times the output at a fraction of the old cost, will win the clients who want results measured in numbers.

Become the validator

Media planning and buying will become totally algorithmic. Humans stay at two points in the process. The ideation at the start and the checking at the end. The middle, where junior staff once spent their days planning and placing, gets automated. The agency’s role becomes validation. Nobody will take a platform’s recommendation at face value. “You’re not going to say, I agree with the Google plan. You’ll want to check,” Sorrell said.

Position yourself as the person who scrutinises the machine’s work. If you run a consultancy or an agency, your value is in judgment, not in execution. The media buyer that is age 25? That role disappears. The experienced strategist who can look at an AI-generated plan and say “this is right” or “this is wrong” becomes irreplaceable. Build that skill in yourself and your team.

Drive radical efficiency

Sorrell described a joint venture with Nvidia, AWS, and Adobe on outside broadcasting using AI. The result was an 80% reduction in cost. That number is already a reality. Every service business has processes that cost more than they should because humans have always done them. AI changes the equation.

Go through your operations and find where the money leaks. Identify the tasks your team does that a machine could handle faster. Maybe it’s reporting, maybe it’s scheduling, maybe it’s the first draft of every deliverable. The savings are huge. An agency that operates at 80% lower cost on its production can either increase margins or pass savings to clients and win more work. Both options beat standing still.

Democratise knowledge

Sorrell’s fifth step was the one that most people overlook. He talked about using AI to spread knowledge across an organisation so that silos break down. He pointed to Jensen Huang running Nvidia with 50 direct reports and no one-to-one meetings. “AI spreads knowledge as long as you enfranchise people and give them access,” Sorrell said. “You get rid of the silos.”

Most agencies and service businesses hoard information in the heads of senior people. Junior team members wait for briefings that come too late. AI changes this. Give your team access to shared knowledge systems. Let AI summarise client histories, surface past work, and distribute learning across the company. The business that shares what it knows internally will move faster than the one that keeps everything locked in the founder’s head. Stop controlling information and start building systems that make everyone smarter.

How the man behind advertising’s biggest empire says you stay relevant in the age of AI

Sorrell told me that reduced employment is coming, but the number won’t be the 95% that some predict. The agencies and businesses that survive will be leaner, faster, and built around these five steps.

Compress creative production. Personalise at scale. Become the validator. Drive radical efficiency. Democratise knowledge. Whether you run an agency, a coaching practice, or a consultancy, the same process applies. Adapt now or spend the next few years watching someone else take your clients.

Feature image credit: SIR MARTIN SORRELL

By Jodie Cook,

Find Jodie Cook on LinkedIn. Visit Jodie’s website.

Sourced from Forbes

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How AI is making ad creative faster — and more fair

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By Nikhil Nanivadekar

The shift toward AI is not just about producing ads faster, it’s about giving creative capability to everyone, writes Amazon’s Nikhil Nanivadekar.

The following is a guest piece written by Nikhil Nanivadekar, principal engineer, consumer ad experiences at Amazon. Opinions are the author’s own. 

Advertising has always celebrated creativity, but for many brands, it came with real constraints. Big ideas required big budgets, specialized teams and long production cycles. Speed was a luxury, and experimentation carried risk. For too many businesses, the gap between a great idea and a great ad felt impossibly wide.

Artificial intelligence is breaking down these barriers. When the barriers to experimentation fall, creativity rises and more innovative storytelling becomes possible for everyone. This is not a distant promise. It is happening right now, across industries and businesses of every size.

The rules of advertising are being rewritten in real time. According to the Marketing AI Institute’s “2025 State of Marketing AI Report,” 74% of marketers now say AI is very important to their success over the next 12 months, up eight percentage points from 2024. That momentum is only accelerating.

This shift is not just about producing ads faster. It is about giving creative capability to everyone. Mom-and-pop shops can now be seen and heard in ways once reserved for the biggest brands. The challenge has never been a lack of ideas. Small businesses have always had compelling stories to tell. The barrier has always been bringing those ideas to life at a level that competes for attention. AI is changing that equation, putting sophisticated creative capabilities in the hands of businesses of all sizes and letting their stories finally shine.

Amplifying creativity and agility

One of the biggest shifts is how creative work gets produced. Small and mid-sized brands that once relied solely on simple product-shot ads now use AI to transform product images into lifestyle scenes, convert detail pages into audio ads and develop simple ideas into full TV commercials, all with a single prompt. What once required weeks of production planning can now happen in minutes.

But agentic AI tools are changing the game, letting teams test wildly different approaches in minutes instead of weeks. Customers report spending less time on administrative work and more time on big ideas.

For example, when Molly’s Suds set out to create a streaming TV ad, they didn’t start with a storyboard, an agency brief or a production crew. Instead, they experimented by using Creative Agent — Amazon Ads’ new conversational, agentic AI tool.

Creative Agent analysed the images, product copy, reviews and brand details from the product detail page to understand Molly’s Suds’ tone, customer value proposition and visual style. From there, the tool guided the advertiser through brainstorming, script development, scene planning, voice over selection and final video production.

This is one example of AI tools turning a difficult and expensive process into a streamlined, exciting new creative possibility.

Democratizing the advertising process

While increased speed and efficiency delivered by AI is important, it’s the access and breaking down barriers that is perhaps the most important change AI is driving.

Brands once side-lined by constraints are now stepping into creative spaces as active players, bringing fresh perspectives and diverse voices that make advertising richer for everyone. This momentum is visible among Amazon sellers themselves. By the end of 2024, nearly one in five Amazon sellers were using AI-powered creative tools, with the majority being small businesses discovering for the first time what it feels like to compete at the highest level.

The impact is not just philosophical, it is measurable. McKinsey’s “State of AI in 2025” report shows that revenue gains from AI appear most commonly in marketing and sales. We believe broader access to creative capabilities translates quickly into real business outcomes. When more businesses can tell their stories effectively, everyone wins.

AI-powered creative tools are now foundational for brands of all sizes. They accelerate production, enhance storytelling and deliver a level of sophistication that once required massive budgets and large teams. But beyond the efficiency gains and the impressive statistics, what excites me most is what this means for the future of advertising itself. The result is a more level playing field, one where imagination becomes the most valuable currency, and where any brand with a great idea and a great story has a real chance to be heard.

Feature image credit: peshkov via Getty Images

By Nikhil Nanivadekar

Sourced from MarketingDive

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87% of agency pros say the traditional agency model is broken

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By Luis Rijo

Basis survey of 213 professionals finds 87% believe the traditional agency model is broken, as AI adoption, layoffs, and in-housing reshape advertising in 2026.

Basis today published its 2026 Advertising Agency Report, a survey of more than 200 advertising professionals that delivers one of the most sobering assessments of the industry’s structural health in years. The findings, released April 20, 2026, show that 87.3% of agency professionals believe the traditional agency model is either broken today or will be within three to five years. Among senior leaders at the VP level or above, that figure climbs to 91.5%.

The Chicago-based company, which operates a software platform connecting media planning, operations, reporting, and financial reconciliation across programmatic, publisher-direct, search, social, and connected TV channels, conducted the annual study across 213 respondents at leading agencies. The sample is larger than prior waves – 113 respondents in 2024 and 171 in 2025 – giving the 2026 data more statistical weight and making the year-over-year declines in confidence more significant.

The traditional agency model under pressure

The headline finding breaks down further when examined by response category. According to the report, 29.1% of all respondents said the traditional agency model is already broken outright. Another 35.7% described it as “somewhat” broken. A further 22.5% said the model is not broken yet but will be within three to five years. Just 12.7% believed the model remains intact. Among senior leaders specifically, more than 70% believe the model is already broken in some form.

The traditional model in question was built on billable hours, bundled services, and human-driven execution. As the report explains, that structure is proving increasingly difficult to sustain as AI compresses timelines and clients expect more output for less cost. When a task that once required 20 hours of labor now takes two, the arithmetic of the billable-hour model breaks down.

Ryan Manchee, SVP of Brand Marketing at Basis, described the dynamic in the press release accompanying the report: “Basis’ 2026 Advertising Agency Report illustrates an industry in flux, where operational complexity, economic pressure, and AI-driven disruption are forcing agencies to rethink how they work, how they deliver value, and how they are compensated. As the agency model transforms, the question now is what tools, technologies and practices these businesses will use to refit and remodel. While AI can be a business accelerator and force multiplier for agencies, it is only effective if it operates on advertising systems that are structured and connected.”

Work is getting harder, client relationships more strained

Seventy percent of agency professionals said their jobs are more difficult today than they were two years ago. That figure represents a sharp deterioration in working conditions at a time when the industry is simultaneously expected to do more with less. Two-thirds of respondents – 66.2% – also said that digital advertising itself has become harder over the same period, up from 58.4% in 2025 and 58.4% in 2024, a consistent upward trend across three consecutive survey waves.

Client relationships are deteriorating in parallel. Fifty-four percent of agency professionals reported that their agency’s client relationships are more strained today than two years ago, up from 50.9% in 2025 and 43.4% in 2024. The progression across three years reflects clients arriving with higher expectations and less patience, compressing timelines while increasing scrutiny over results.

Transparency remains a persistent concern. A decisive 88.3% of respondents said there should be more transparency across digital advertising, reflecting frustration with accountability gaps around ad fraud, made-for-advertising websites, incomplete performance data, and supply chain opacity. The figure has remained stubbornly high across survey years.

Operational dysfunction: processes and siloed systems

Despite years of technology investment, the top challenges facing agencies remain the same ones identified in prior waves of this research. Inefficient processes topped the list, cited by 44.1% of respondents. Siloed or disconnected systems came second at 40.4%. These two challenges are not independent – disconnected systems are a primary driver of process inefficiency, creating a reinforcing cycle that proves difficult to break.

Shrinking profits ranked third at 39.0%, followed by rising costs at 36.6%. The pairing illustrates a margin squeeze: costs rising on one side while clients push back against fee structures on the other. For senior leaders specifically, the picture is slightly more acute: inefficient processes were cited by 48.9% of VPs and above, siloed systems by 41.5%, and shrinking profits by 36.2%.

Tech stack sprawl has doubled in two years

One of the more striking technical findings in the report concerns the expansion of agency adtech stacks. Among full-service and media agencies, 36.8% now manage ten or more tools as part of their adtech and martech infrastructure. Two years ago, that figure was just 17.3% – meaning the proportion of agencies running ten-plus tools has more than doubled in that timeframe. Nearly half of all respondents – 46.7% – reported managing eight or more tools. The growth in stack complexity explains in part why inefficiency and silos remain so persistent: the more fragmented the tooling, the harder it becomes to achieve coordinated workflows.

This pattern fits a broader industry picture. IAB forecasts for 2026 show that two-thirds of advertisers now concentrate on agentic AI for campaign execution, yet most organizations lack the unified infrastructure to deploy those systems effectively. The Basis data reinforces that gap at the agency level.

AI adoption surpasses 99% – but anxiety is rising alongside it

AI is now used at over 99% of agencies surveyed, according to the report. That figure marks near-universal penetration across the sample. Daily use has reached 59.2% of agency professionals in 2026, up sharply from 15.9% in 2024 and 38.6% in 2025. An additional 27.2% use AI tools three to four times per week, meaning 86.4% of agency professionals use AI at least several times weekly.

The tasks where AI has taken hold are concentrated in the earlier, less consequential stages of workflow. Ideation and brainstorming lead at 86.9%, followed by research at 84.0%, drafting content or creative at 72.3%, and producing images or videos at 56.3%. Streamlining processes reached 52.1% and repurposing existing content 43.7%. But at the stages where AI could deliver the most operational leverage – media planning, which was recorded at 29.1%, and media buying strategy at 22.1% – adoption remains comparatively low.

Agentic AI, which allows systems to move from insight to action autonomously, has reached 46% of surveyed agencies, with 54% yet to adopt. Among those that have, the leading use cases are reporting and analytics at 61.2%, campaign brief creation at 58.2%, and content creation at 57.1%. Creative optimization reached 43.9% and personalization 36.7%. Media planning agents are used by 20.4% and media buying agents by just 9.2%.

Agentic advertising infrastructure has been expanding rapidly across the industry, with multiple platforms introducing autonomous campaign execution capabilities. Yet the Basis data shows most agencies are still deploying these tools in reporting and content functions rather than the media buying and planning tasks where the efficiency gains would be most financially significant.

For the second consecutive year, agency leaders named AI as their top investment priority. Among VPs and above, 77.7% said they plan to increase AI spending over the next 12 months. Automation tools and reporting and analytics capabilities each drew 44.7% of leaders planning increased investment, tying for second. Talent acquisition was cited by 38.3% and data management tools by 34.0%. Across all respondents, 73.7% said their organization has plans to invest in new technology to automate or streamline processes within the next year.

AI poses a revenue threat – and most agencies know it

The same technology agencies are counting on to reduce costs is also the technology most likely to compress their own revenue. Ninety percent of all agency professionals said they believe AI poses a threat to their agency’s primary revenue streams. Among senior leaders, that figure reaches 95%. More than half of all respondents – 57.3% – characterized AI as a moderate-to-significant threat, with 42.7% describing it as a moderate threat and 14.6% a significant one.

The mechanism is clear. AI reduces the labour hours required to execute tasks across the full campaign lifecycle, from strategy and planning through creative, buying, and reporting. As the report notes, when a 20-hour task becomes a 2-hour task, billing models built on time and headcount begin to lose their structural rationale. Clients, increasingly aware of this compression, apply downward pressure on fees.

The number of AI pessimists – those who believe AI will have a negative impact on agencies over the next three to five years – has grown sharply. The share stood at 19.9% in 2025. In 2026, it has risen to 32.0%. Even among those who remain positive about AI’s impact, the character of that optimism has shifted: only 26.8% now believe the impact will be “mostly positive,” compared to 36.3% who held that view the year before. Among senior leaders, more than 25% now expect AI to have a net negative impact on agencies, roughly double the number who held that view in 2025.

The ad industry’s relationship with AI across 2025 and early 2026 has been characterized by exactly this ambivalence, with platforms racing to launch agentic capabilities while practitioners reported operational chaos distinguishing actionable automation from vendor hype.

In-housing accelerates as AI lowers the barriers

The primary structural barriers to brand in-housing have historically been talent and infrastructure – two things that AI has begun to erode. A lean internal team equipped with the right tools can now execute what once required a full-service agency relationship. That shift is measurable in the Basis data: 65.3% of agencies said that in the past 12 months, at least some clients moved work that the agency previously handled in-house. The figure adds to the client tension data, reflecting pressure that compounds year on year.

In-housing was also cited as a challenge by 23.9% of all respondents and by 29.8% of senior leaders – a notably higher proportion at leadership level, suggesting that agency executives are watching the trend with more concern than their teams below.

Layoffs, workforce confidence, and the talent pipeline

Nearly 40% of agencies – specifically 39.9% – reported conducting layoffs within the past 12 months. The workforce reductions reflect agencies adjusting headcount in response to AI-driven efficiency gains and the resulting downward pressure on margins. Layoffs driven by AI adoption have been documented across multiple data and advertising technology companies throughout 2025 and into 2026.

For the first time in the survey’s history, fewer than half of all agency professionals feel optimistic about the future of digital advertising. Specifically, 48.8% described themselves as feeling good, optimistic, or confident about digital advertising’s future. The figure was 56.1% in 2025 and 62.8% in 2024. The decline of nearly 14 percentage points over two years marks the first time confidence has fallen below the 50% threshold.

Industry confidence among leaders has fallen even faster. Senior leaders who felt optimistic about digital advertising’s future stood at 72.5% in 2024, dropped to 64.6% in 2025, and now sit at 51.1% in 2026 – a cumulative decline of 21.4 percentage points in two years.

A confidence gap is emerging between leadership and junior staff that carries long-term implications. Senior leaders remain relatively confident about the futures of their own agencies at 73.4%, while entry-to-mid level employees report confidence in their agency’s future at just 57.1%. The 16-point gap reflects an uneven distribution of anxiety across organizational levels. Junior roles are the ones most exposed to AI-driven displacement, and 80.7% of entry-to-mid level employees said they are likely to search for a new job within the next 12 months. Only 27.7% of respondents overall said they were somewhat or very likely to job-hunt – suggesting most workers are holding their positions rather than actively seeking moves, but that the pressure is concentrated among those with the least tenure.

Why this matters for the marketing community

Global advertising spend is projected to cross $1 trillion for the first time in 2026, according to industry forecasts cited in the Basis report. That growth creates real opportunity. But as programmatic advertising crossed $162.4 billion in 2025 in the US alone and agentic AI begins reshaping how campaigns are bought and sold, the question of which agency structures can survive is pressing. An industry in which nearly nine in ten professionals doubt the long-term viability of the foundational business model cannot continue in its current form indefinitely.

The data points to a set of structural adaptations that the most durable agencies will need to pursue: consolidating fragmented tech stacks, eliminating siloes that drive inefficiency, investing in AI infrastructure that connects rather than fragments workflows, and rethinking revenue models that no longer work when AI compresses time dramatically. The report frames these not as optional improvements but as conditions for survival.

For professionals in paid search, programmatic, and broader digital media, the Basis findings reinforce a pattern visible across multiple 2026 industry outlooks: the organizations that treat AI adoption as a technology checkbox rather than a structural transformation are the ones most likely to find themselves on the wrong side of the confidence gap.

Timeline

  • 2023: Basis begins tracking AI usage in its annual agency survey; 32.7% of respondents reported not using AI at all, with daily AI use at just 9.9%
  • 2024: Basis surveys 113 agency professionals; daily AI use was 15.9%; 62.8% of respondents felt optimistic about digital advertising; agencies managing 8 or more adtech tools stood at 22.1%
  • 2025: Basis surveys 171 agency professionals; daily AI use reaches 38.6%; industry optimism falls to 56.1%; 50.9% of agencies reported more strained client relationships
  • December 2025: WPP Media projects global ad spending to surpass $1 trillion; programmatic advertising reaches $162.4 billion in the US with 20.5% year-over-year growth
  • January 2026: IAB releases 2026 Outlook Study forecasting 9.5% US ad spend growth, with five of six top advertiser priorities linked to AI
  • January 2026: Mediaocean survey shows 54% of marketers increasing AI media spend while 42% struggle with data quality issues limiting broader implementation
  • January 5, 2026: PubMatic launches AgenticOS with live campaigns running through agent-led workflows, partnering with WPP Media, Butler/Till, and MiQ
  • February 26, 2026: IAB Tech Lab formally names its agentic initiative AAMP, consolidating the Agentic Advertising Management Protocols under a single architecture
  • April 16, 2026: IAB releases 2025 Internet Advertising Revenue Report, showing US digital ad revenue reaching $294.6 billion with programmatic crossing $162.4 billion
  • April 20, 2026: Basis releases the 2026 Advertising Agency Report, based on 213 respondents; 87.3% believe the traditional agency model is broken or will be; daily AI use reaches 59.2%; fewer than half of agency professionals feel optimistic about the industry’s future for the first time in the survey’s history

Summary

Who: Basis, a Chicago-based advertising software company operating since 2001, surveyed 213 advertising professionals at leading agencies for its annual industry study. Ryan Manchee, SVP of Brand Marketing at Basis, commented on the findings.

What: The 2026 Advertising Agency Report found that 87.3% of agency professionals believe the traditional agency model is either already broken or will be within three to five years. The report documents accelerating AI adoption, rising layoffs, client in-housing, tech stack sprawl, and a historic drop in industry confidence below the 50% threshold for the first time.

When: The report was released on April 20, 2026. The survey covered the current state of advertising agencies as of early 2026, with comparative data going back to 2023 and 2024.

Where: The findings apply to the US advertising agency industry, with Basis headquartered at 11 E Madison St, 6th Floor, Chicago, IL 60602. The full report is available at basis.com/reports/2026-advertising-agency-report.

Why: The report matters because it documents structural cracks in the agency model at a moment when global advertising spend is projected to cross $1 trillion for the first time. As AI compresses the labour-intensive work on which billable-hour models depend, and as brands increasingly bring work in-house, agencies face simultaneous pressure on revenue, workforce, and operational efficiency. The findings signal that the industry has moved past theoretical disruption into measurable decline of confidence in the existing model.

By Luis Rijo

Sourced from PPC Land

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From Symbols to Systems: Designing brands that hold under pressure

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Sourced from CREATIVE BOOM

Creative Director Daniel Irizarry of Athletics argues that the most resilient brand systems aren’t built on exhaustive rules – they’re anchored by a few essential elements, and designed to move.

Most brand systems don’t fail because they’re poorly designed. They fail because they’re overdesigned — too many rules, too much rigidity, too little room for the people using them to actually think. In a world where culture moves faster than any guidelines document can keep up with, the brands that hold together won’t be the ones with the most elaborate systems. They’ll be the ones who got a few essential things right and gave themselves the freedom to move.

That idea has sharpened for me over the past few years as AI has started reshaping how quickly creative work can move. If the flexible layer of brand identity — photography, video, illustration, 3D — is being asked to respond to culture faster than ever, then the question of what stays fixed isn’t just a design question anymore. It’s an existential one. The core elements of a brand have never mattered more, precisely because the pace of everything around them is accelerating.

Start with the why

Before we design anything, we need to understand what we’re building for and who we’re building for. That means market analysis, brand audits, and — critically — culture and audience. Not culture as a trend report, but culture as the living context in which a brand has to earn attention. And not audience as a demographic spreadsheet, but as real people with preferences, values, and ways of moving through the world. The goal is to connect business objectives with cultural relevance. When those align, you can tell stories that are emotionally resonant and strategically sharp — a genuine connection between what a brand stands for and what people care about.

We also need to understand how an organisation currently delivers its branding. What’s already in place? Where are the friction points? A beautiful identity that an internal team can’t execute is a failed identity. And every category has its visual codes — shorthands rooted in culture that help audiences place a brand’s purpose and position. Which do we reinforce to make a brand legible, and which do we subvert to make it distinctive? The craft is in reading the landscape clearly enough to know where to play within conventions and where to break them.

The anchor matters more than ever

From this foundation, we build the core identity — the symbols that become a brand’s essential markers. Logo, colour, typography, graphic language, sound, motion. These are the elements that do the heaviest lifting for recognition and consistency. In a moment of accelerating change, they need to be more polished, more singular, more resilient than ever. They’re the anchor. If the anchor doesn’t hold, nothing else matters.

This is the part where the industry’s instinct to systematise everything gets backwards. As the world speeds up, the natural impulse is to add more rules — more guardrails, more specifications, more pages to the toolkit. But the brands that will thrive aren’t the ones with the thickest guidelines. They’re the ones who planted a few stakes in the ground so firmly that everything else can move around them.

Volume control

I think about this as volume control. A brand, like a person, can’t always be at eleven. Depending on the situation, context, and audience, you need to modulate—and the ability to do so well is becoming the defining capability of a resilient brand system.

Working across multiple Google product brands has made this vivid for me. Google understands the difference between fixed and flexible at scale. The core ingredients are remarkably lean: name, logo, colour, shape, form, product experience, UI. That last part matters — for many brands today, especially in tech, the product itself is the primary brand surface, where the brand lives at its quietest and most constant volume. But what holds everything together isn’t just the ingredients — it’s personality. There’s a consistent tone and emotional register that make something feel Google, whether you’re looking at a Circle to Search campaign or a Chrome Browser onboarding screen. The individual products modulate depending on the audience and context, but the personality and a few key signals remain constant. That coherence comes from a team that deeply understands its brand and partners willing to push each other toward the best work.

That’s volume control in practice. Not a rigid system applied uniformly, but a clear core expressed at different intensities — meeting people where they are without losing the thread.

Pressure-test everything

Here’s the thing about core elements and volume control: you can’t know if they work until you’ve stretched them. As the media landscape evolves, brands have to show up on more surfaces, in more formats, in ways that didn’t exist two years ago. A logo that looks great on a website might fall apart in a spatial computing environment. A type system that sings in editorial might go flat in motion.

This is why R&D isn’t a nice-to-have — it’s essential. Experimentation with code, 3D, motion, AI — these aren’t finishing touches applied after the system is locked. They’re how you pressure-test whether the brand can live in the real world and discover the edges of what your identity can do, which is exactly where differentiation lives. The brands that feel truly unique aren’t the ones that stayed safe within their own guidelines. They’re the ones that pushed their core elements into unfamiliar territory and found out what held.

Systems that empower, not constrain

If you’ve been in this industry long enough, you’ve lived the other version. A client asks for comprehensive guidelines, the team delivers an exhaustive system, and somewhere along the way, you realise that even you — the person who helped build it — are second-guessing every move against a two-hundred-page document. The rules intended to create consistency end up creating paralysis.

The most important thing a system can do is answer two questions: what are the non-negotiable elements that must retain their integrity, and where is the creative freedom?

Our work with Okta has been the strongest proof of this. We’ve partnered with their brand team for over four years — genuine collaboration built on honest feedback and mutual trust. The system we developed together has real depth and range, and it thrives because Okta has an exceptional internal team with the skill and ambition to take it further. They’ve extended the work far beyond what we initially created, and our partnership continues to evolve as the brand grows. Define the core, establish the volume control, and then trust talented teams to bring their own ingenuity and creativity to the work.

Holding under pressure

The brands that endure won’t be the ones that try to control every pixel. They’ll be the ones who understand what to hold onto, what to let breathe, and what to push into new territory.

That’s what it means to design a brand that holds under pressure. Not rigidity — resilience. Not more rules — sharper instincts. The symbols give you recognition. The volume control gives you range. The collaboration gives you longevity. And the judgment to know when to turn it up and when to pull it back? That’s the part no system can automate.

Sourced from CREATIVE BOOM

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AI translator turns English into LinkedIn speak

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By Chris Taylor

Excited to announce participatory parody by premium search service! #GrowthMindset

If you’ve spent more than a day on LinkedIn in your life, you may have noticed that the networking service has developed a language all of its own. If you were a tad unkind, you might say LinkedIn users self-promote every tiny career moment in such a cliched way, it’s a wonder that their words aren’t written by AI.

Or, if you wanted to turn that last sentence into more, uh, proactively positive LinkedIn speak: “We’re seeing so many thought leaders lean into the hustle, celebrating every micro-win with such a growth-oriented narrative that you’d swear it was automated. It’s all about that personal branding and staying humble while scaling your impact! #GrowthMindset #PersonalBranding #HustleCulture.”

And in a smart marketing move worthy of a LinkedIn update, Kagi has introduced more humorous internet subculture “languages” among its translation options. LinkedIn, launched Wednesday, is only the latest: there’s Reddit speak (lots of “weird-ass,” “cringe” and “banana for scale”), Pirate Speak (“tis a wonder their words aren’t written by some mechanical ghost”), and complete fictional languages like Klingon (you’ll be glad to know Klingons hunt for work on “LinkedInDaq.”)

But it’s the LinkedIn lingo making waves on social media this week. I can see why, because this is more than a novelty — it’s a hilarious and actually useful translation service. When it comes to human-style AI speak taking over our digital lives, the LinkedIn translator is touching the same nerve as Your AI Slop Bores Me — not to mention George Orwell’s Newspeak.

There’s a game-like aspect to the translations, and the game is: is there any human activity that couldn’t be made to sound doubleplusgood in a LinkedIn post? If there is, I haven’t found it yet.

Wasted the afternoon in bed? No, you “decided to prioritize a strategic recharge to optimize cognitive performance and long-term productivity.” Started injecting heroin? Call it “a high-intensity, daily commitment to a specialized chemical routine” that taught you about “supply chain consistency” and “a relentless focus on personal objectives, no matter the cost.” Murdered a co-worker? Nonsense, my friend, you “successfully offboarded a team member … to optimize long-term headcount.”

The translation works the other way around, too: LinkedIn speak into plain English. That’s right — the next time your boss writes a 10,000-word LinkedIn epic that could have been a three-line email, there’s no need to Google all the obscure marketing or management jargon. Just Kagi the whole thing.

And if you need to write a comment in response, know that “I hated this and I am dumber for reading it” can also be rendered as “’While I’m always looking for ways to challenge my current mindset, this particular content reminded me of the importance of being intentional with the information we consume. Grateful for the learning opportunity!”

Hey, maybe AI will save white collar workers’ jobs after all.

Feature image credit: Smith Collection/Gado/Getty Images

By Chris Taylor

Chris is a veteran tech, entertainment and culture journalist, author of ‘How Star Wars Conquered the Universe,’ and co-host of the Doctor Who podcast ‘Pull to Open.’ Hailing from the U.K., Chris got his start as a sub editor on national newspapers. He moved to the U.S. in 1996, and became senior news writer for Time.com a year later. In 2000, he was named San Francisco bureau chief for Time magazine. He has served as senior editor for Business 2.0, and West Coast editor for Fortune Small Business and Fast Company. Chris is a graduate of Merton College, Oxford and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism. He is also a long-time volunteer at 826 Valencia, the nationwide after-school program co-founded by author Dave Eggers. His book on the history of Star Wars is an international bestseller and has been translated into 11 languages.

Sourced from Mashable

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