GenAI taking over digital video buyers’ creatives
86% say they are or will soon use it. Small and mid-tier brands wanting better video for less money are among the biggest users.
Generative AI is transforming digital video ad creation, with 86% of digital video buyers either using or planning to use it in creatives, according to the IAB’s just-released 2025 Digital Video Ad Spend & Strategy report.
Currently, 30% of digital video ads are built or adjusted with GenAI, and that’s expected to increase to nearly 40% by 2026. Small and mid-tier brands are some of the biggest users, hoping they can get quality videos without paying for large creative teams or extensive production.
The major use of GenAI in video enhancement is tailoring ads for different audiences (42%). Next is visual and style modifications (38%) and improving contextual relevance (36%). Buyers also want support from the sell-side to facilitate GenAI creative testing, with 46% expressing a desire for this assistance.
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Connected TV (CTV) is seeing increased programmatic activation and higher expectations for live content. The shift towards programmatic CTV is leading to a surge in biddable inventory, with buyers anticipating that nearly half (47%) of their CTV inventory will be biddable this year, up 13 percentage points from 2024. Currently, 85% of CTV purchases are made programmatically, up from 75% in the previous year.
Forty-one percent of CTV programmatic buyers cited improved return on investment (ROI) or return on ad spend (ROAS) as their top KPI. Furthermore, when investing in live content on streaming platforms, nearly six out of ten buyers expect more advanced capabilities and options than traditional linear TV offers. These include incremental audience reach (43%), real-time signals and contextual targeting (41%), and interactive elements or shoppable ads (36-38%).
Despite programmatic’s self-serve nature, 83% of buyers indicate that human involvement from the sell side is frequently necessary to activate or customize programmatic CTV deals. In line with this, 74% of buyers have already invested in or plan to allocate in-house resources to manage self-serve CTV activation platforms.
Methodology
The survey is based on 368 respondents who worked at agencies or directly for a brand marketer that spent at least $1 million on advertising in 2024. The full report can be found here.
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