The Impact of AI on Digital Advertising Report

In order to understand how AI is being adopted, governed, and leveraged across the digital advertising ecosystem, IAB Europe's AI Working Group developed the Impact of AI on Digital advertising survey. The survey, which is in its first year, gathered nearly 100 responses from advertisers, agencies, ad tech companies, and publishers across multiple European markets, with over half completing it in the German language.

The survey asked about the following areas:

• The internal use of AI tools
• The use of AI tools across digital advertising campaigns
• Governance and guidelines
• The state of readiness
• Drivers and barriers to adoption

Read the press release here and download the report below to discover the following highlights and more:

AI Adoption is Widespread and Investment is Growing
85% of companies already use AI-based tools for marketing, with nearly three-quarters confirming at least one campaign function is AI-powered. No respondents plan to reduce spend, and the majority expect to maintain or increase investment.

Targeting and Content Generation Lead Use Cases
Targeting and content generation top the list of AI-powered functions. Ad tech firms and agencies report clear KPI benefits, while publishers remain more cautious, with fewer than a third citing CPM increases.

Governance and Guidance Remain Inconsistent
While 68% of companies have general internal AI guidelines in place, less than half (43%) have them for marketing and advertising. Only a third of companies receive buy-side guidelines on AI, and in many organisations, governance is either not formalised or rests with a single lead.

Privacy and Skills Gaps are the Biggest Barriers
Privacy is flagged as the number one concern across the ecosystem when it comes to the use of AI in digital ad campaigns. Lack of internal expertise and training also stand out as critical obstacles to wider adoption, with differing views on whether user data can be used to train AI models.

Performance and Market Expectations Vary Across Sectors
60% of ad tech firms and 48% of agencies report KPI improvements from AI adoption, but publisher benefits are less direct. Looking ahead, over 80% of respondents say they are interested in buying or selling ad space on consumer-facing AI platforms such as LLM-based chatbots.