Advertising: AI Shifts Power Towards Decision-Making

Beyond automation, decision intelligence is becoming the new battleground in digital advertising. Assistants, unique signals, proof of effectiveness, and trust are reshaping the value of media spending, with consolidation deemed likely by several players.

Anticipated Consolidation and New Success Criteria

AI-related developments could change how brands measure the effectiveness of their media investments. Several stakeholders anticipate a more competitive market and potential consolidation. Terry Kawaja believes that the ability to make decisions based on distinctive signals will sort winners from losers and encourage mergers. The factors proposed for success are scale, access to useful signals, decision intelligence, and trust. The determining measure will depend on the platforms' ability to demonstrate that their decisions improve outcomes without undermining consumer trust.

Compressed Purchase Journey and Trust Issues

Assistants could bring together search, discovery, and comparison in a single interface, shortening the journey to purchase. Stakeholders believe that, for now, consumers will remain engaged by delegating certain tasks rather than completely relinquishing decision-making. If advertising integrates into these experiences, trust will become crucial. Ana Milicevic compares this movement to a delegation of the "brain" to a set of agents.

In Adtech, the Advantage Shifts from Execution to Decision

The simplification and automation of workflows are changing priorities: the focus is shifting from merely orchestrating campaigns to the quality of real-time decisions. Players capable of more finely balancing signals, creatives, placements, and optimization levers should benefit. Rivalry may increase among DSPs, SSPs, agencies, retail media networks, and major platforms for control of this intelligence. Terry Kawaja distinguishes between efficiency, which he illustrates as 10%, and effectiveness, which he places at 10x, to highlight the potential gap.

Unified Budgets vs. Impression Trading

Ravi Patel differentiates budget allocation across platforms from the choice of individual impressions. He emphasizes that Google, Meta, and Amazon retain impression-level trading within their environments. He mentions the rise of "unified media platforms" (UMP) as an emerging term, noting that these tools address the "what" and "how much," but not the selection of impressions, a distinction he considers central.

A Moving Market and the Open Web Equation

Mergers are multiplying as the end of 2026 approaches in an already very active sector. For the open web to maintain its share, described as modest and fragmented compared to the scale and simplicity of major platforms, it will need to combine simpler workflows with significantly better results. The Digital Marketing Summit, organized by LUMA Partners, took place in New York. Conor McKenna stated on November 9 that the workflow gap is narrowing with AI. Participants confronted their positions on what will capture the interest of corporate development teams.