AI Adoption Gap in Digital Advertising
Tags: Statistics
Snapshot of Adoption
The IAB’s 2025 State of Data report highlights uneven but accelerating AI adoption across agencies, brands, and publishers:
- 70% of agencies, brands, and publishers had not yet integrated AI across planning, activation, and analysis at the time of reporting.
- Despite this, agencies and publishers are adopting AI at higher rates than brands, with notable brand examples (e.g., use of AI to fully produce ads).
- By 2026, at least half of agencies, brands, and publishers are expected to integrate AI into the campaign lifecycle.
Barriers to Adoption
- 58% of companies cite legal, governance, and compliance concerns as a challenge to AI adoption.
- Additional challenges include data input/output quality, information security, and the complexity of working across multiple AI tools.
Segmentation and Generative AI
- AI-assisted segmentation is gaining traction, with 35% of publishers and 51% of agencies using AI for this purpose.
- “One-quarter to one-third” of agencies and brands report using generative AI to build segments with synthetic (fake) data, addressing gaps where data signals are no longer available.
Generative AI Usage
- Almost 90% of agencies, brands, and publishers report using LLM-based tools for content generation at scale.
Implications
These statistics suggest rapid normalization of AI across the programmatic lifecycle, with governance and privacy-by-design practices acting as key enablers. Areas like segmentation and content generation are leading, while cross-tool integration and legal clarity remain pivotal constraints.
Relevance for Governance Programs
- Plan for rising AI usage by strengthening risk assessments, transparency, and data subject rights processes.
- Expect more synthetic data experimentation to mitigate signal loss and sensitive data constraints.
- Prioritize vendor diligence and contracting for data usage, model training, and deletion/"unlearning" capabilities.
Sources:- IAB_AI_Governance_and_Risk_Management_Playbook_August_2025.pdf
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