Correction, 2026-10-02: we gave the Forrester and 4A's agency survey as 91% (61% using, 30% exploring), figures from a press write-up. Forrester's own release says "more than 60%" were using generative AI and "a further 31%" were exploring it; the page now quotes Forrester.
Correction, 2026-09-30: we re-checked every statistic here against its original source. Fixed: the video-buyer figure (86% was IAB's 2025 number; the 2026 report says 62% use it), a Salesforce "87%" that Salesforce never published (its own figure is 75%), Meta's advertiser count (now more than 8 million), IAB's ad-spend forecast (raised to 12.3%), and the consumer-sentiment split, which added up to 110%. Wording tightened on five others to match the source.
This is a reference page. Every statistic below names its source in the sentence, and we only include numbers we could trace to a named study, survey, or company report. Where a figure circulates widely but we could not verify the original source, we left it out. The picture the verified numbers paint is a clean split: advertisers have adopted AI at scale and expect more of it, while consumers have grown measurably more skeptical. That gap is the story of AI advertising in 2026, and it runs through almost every section here.
Adoption: advertisers and agencies
83% of ad executives report their company has deployed AI in creative processes, up from 60% in 2024. From IAB and Sonata Insights' "The AI Ad Gap Widens" study, published January 2026. This is the headline adoption number for the industry: within two years, AI in creative went from a majority to nearly universal.
Nearly two in three digital video buyers (62%) now use generative AI for video creative, up from 51% in 2025. IAB, 2026 Digital Video Ad Spend & Strategy Report (July 2026). The same report says a third of their ad assets will use generative AI this year, up from a quarter in 2025, projected to reach 43% by 2027. (The widely quoted 86% figure is from IAB's 2025 report and counts buyers using or planning to use it.)
Advertiser AI use by format: 85% for social ads, 73% for display, 56% for TV, and 42% for audio. IAB, "The AI Ad Gap Widens" (January 2026). Adoption tracks with format volume and iteration speed, which is why social leads and audio trails.
More than 60% of US agency decision-makers said their agency already used generative AI, and a further 31% said it was exploring use cases. From Forrester's 2024 survey fielded with the 4A's, in Forrester's own words (its June 17, 2024 release); the 61% / 30% split that circulated was a press write-up's, not the publisher's.
Creative agencies lead media agencies on adoption: 69% currently using generative AI versus 57%. Forrester and 4A's, 2024. The gap makes sense, since creative production is where generation tools apply most directly.
Large agencies (201+ employees) sit at 78% adoption, while agencies under 50 employees are at 53%. Forrester and 4A's, 2024. Scale still buys AI capability faster, though the smaller-agency number is climbing.
75% of marketers have adopted AI. Salesforce, State of Marketing, 10th edition (February 2026, 4,450 respondents surveyed October to November 2025). Salesforce's own headline adds the catch: many still use it to send generic campaigns. (An "87%" figure attributed to Salesforce circulates on stat-roundup sites; we could not find it on any Salesforce page.)
Ad spend and market size
US ad spend is now forecast to grow 12.3% in 2026. IAB raised the forecast on 2026-09-10, up 2.8 points from the 9.5% in its January 2026 Outlook Study, which attributed the growth to digital expansion, cyclical events and accelerating adoption of agentic AI.
US digital video ad spend is projected to surpass $80 billion in 2026 ($81.9 billion in the full report), growing 11% and nearly 20% faster than the total ad market. IAB, 2026 Digital Video Ad Spend & Strategy Report (May 2026). Video is both the fastest-growing spend category and the one most reshaped by AI generation.
Two in three digital video buyers are live (21%), testing (20%) or planning to use (25%) agentic AI for video campaigns in 2026. IAB, 2026 Digital Video Ad Spend & Strategy Report. The shift is not only in how creative gets made, but in how media gets planned and bought.
73% of marketers are prioritizing content optimized for AI-generated answers. IAB, 2026 Outlook Study (January 2026). AI is reshaping the surface where discovery happens, not just the creative that runs on it.
Generative AI could add the equivalent of $2.6 trillion to $4.4 trillion annually across the use cases studied, with marketing and sales among the highest-impact functions. From McKinsey's "The economic potential of generative AI" (June 2023), across the 63 use cases it analyzed. McKinsey estimates the marketing productivity uplift at roughly 5% to 15% of total marketing spend.
Production economics and org impact
76% of agency decision-makers expect generative AI to have a significant or very significant impact on how their agency creates content. Forrester and 4A's, 2024. Alongside content, majorities expected significant impact on the agency marketplace and on client content production.
77% of marketers plan to shift more of their ad budget from human-made creator content to generative-AI creator content in the next 12 months. Billion Dollar Boy (October 2025), also reported by eMarketer. Budgets are following adoption, not just intent.
Meta reported more than 8 million advertisers using at least one of its generative AI ad creative tools. Meta, Q1 2026 earnings call (April 2026), up from more than 4 million on its Q4 2024 call. The scale of AI-assisted creative at the platform level is now in the millions of advertisers, not thousands.
Among advertising professionals, 56% report using AI for idea generation and concepting, about half for visual asset creation, and about 4 in 10 for copywriting, targeting and media planning. The Harris Poll with the 4A's and Infillion, presented at Cannes Lions in June 2026, as reported by Marketing Brew and the 4A's. Ideation leads, but visual production is close behind and closing.
Performance and creative
As of 2026, the average pay for an AI Strategist in the US is $139,867, with most salaries between $121,500 and $157,000. ZipRecruiter salary data, June 2026. The AI-specialist premium is real: it sits well above the general creative strategist band below.
The average US Creative Strategist salary is $92,879. ZipRecruiter, as of September 2026. Both salary figures are live estimates that ZipRecruiter updates. The spread between this and the AI-strategist figure is a proxy for how much the market is paying for AI fluency on top of strategy skills.
Consumer sentiment and trust
This is the other side of the gap, and the numbers are consistent across independent studies.
Only 45% of Gen Z and Millennial consumers feel positive about AI-generated ads, and a quarter are neutral (down from 34%). The share who feel negative is up 12 points from 2024. IAB and Sonata Insights, "The AI Ad Gap Widens" (January 2026). Sentiment is not just low, it is moving in the wrong direction for advertisers. (Corrected 2026-09-30: an earlier version gave the negative share as 40%, which the report does not state and which made the three shares add up to 110%.)
Ad executives believe 82% of Gen Z and Millennial consumers feel positive about AI ads, but only 45% actually do, a 37-point perception gap that widened from 32 points in 2024. IAB, 2026. The industry is not just misjudging consumers, it is misjudging them by more each year.
71% of Gen Z and Millennial consumers report seeing AI-generated ads, up from 54% in 2024. IAB, 2026. Consumers are noticing AI more, which raises the stakes on quality and disclosure.
39% of Gen Z consumers feel negative about AI ads, versus 20% of Millennials. IAB, 2026. The heaviest daily users of AI tools are also the most skeptical of AI in advertising.
73% of consumers say they would be less likely to trust an ad they suspected was made with AI, and 63% would be less likely to purchase from a brand that uses AI-generated ads. The Harris Poll with the 4A's and Infillion, Cannes Lions, June 2026. Suspicion alone, not confirmation, is enough to move trust and purchase intent.
78% of consumers believe AI makes ads "feel less authentic", and 65% said they would "love if brands would never mention meaningless AI marketing again." The Harris Poll, 2026. Beyond the creative itself, consumers are fatigued by AI as a talking point.
50% of US consumers say they would prefer to give their business to brands that avoid using generative AI in consumer-facing content. From a Gartner survey of 1,539 US consumers conducted in October 2025 and released in March 2026. Half the market treats "no gen AI" as a mild preference in the brand's favor.
Only 7% of consumers say visible AI-generated marketing content makes them trust a brand more, while 31% say it makes them trust the brand less. Klaviyo and Datalily survey of about 8,000 consumers in eight countries (November to December 2025), as reported by eMarketer; Klaviyo's own report page puts the "trust less" share at 32%. Visible AI in marketing is, on net, a trust cost today.
Disclosure
91% of consumers expect brands to disclose AI use in marketing. Emplifi, Digital Authenticity in the Age of AI (2026, 1,600+ US and UK consumers), as reported by eMarketer. Disclosure has become a baseline expectation, not a nice-to-have.
73% of Gen Z and Millennial consumers said knowing an ad was made with AI would increase or not change their likelihood to purchase, yet of advertisers who have used generative AI in ads, 89% at least sometimes disclose but less than half always do. IAB, "The AI Ad Gap Widens" (January 2026). The data undercuts the fear that disclosure suppresses response, while showing most advertisers still hedge.
FAQ
What share of advertisers use AI in creative? 83% of ad executives say their company has deployed AI in the creative process, up from 60% in 2024 (IAB and Sonata Insights, January 2026).
Do consumers like AI-generated ads? Less than advertisers think: 45% of Gen Z and Millennial consumers feel positive about them, while 82% of executives believe they do (IAB, January 2026).
Should brands disclose AI in ads? Consumers expect it (91% in Emplifi's 2026 survey), and 73% of Gen Z and Millennial consumers say knowing an ad was made with AI would not lower their likelihood to buy (IAB).
Sources
- IAB and Sonata Insights, "The AI Ad Gap Widens" (2026-01-15): iab.com/insights/the-ai-ad-gap-widens
- IAB 2026 Digital Video Ad Spend & Strategy Report: press release and full report
- IAB 2026 Outlook Study: press release; forecast raised to 12.3%: IAB, 2026-09-10
- Forrester and the 4A's, 2024 ("more than 60%" using, "a further 31%" exploring): Forrester press release, 2024-06-17, checked 2026-10-02
- Salesforce State of Marketing, 10th edition: salesforce.com
- McKinsey, "The economic potential of generative AI" (2023-06-14): mckinsey.com
- Billion Dollar Boy (2025-10-08): billiondollarboy.com
- Meta Q1 2026 and Q4 2024 earnings call transcripts, Meta investor relations
- The Harris Poll with the 4A's and Infillion: Marketing Brew, 2026-06-24 and 4A's
- ZipRecruiter salary pages for AI Strategist and Creative Strategist, as of June and September 2026
- Klaviyo and Datalily: eMarketer, 2026-04-10 and Klaviyo
- Emplifi, Digital Authenticity in the Age of AI: press release
- Gartner (2026-03-16): press release
All checked 2026-09-30.
What the numbers add up to
Read together, the verified stats describe a market moving in two directions at once. Adoption, spend, and executive confidence all point up. Consumer trust and sentiment point down, and the industry keeps overestimating how consumers feel. The practical takeaway is not "stop using AI," which the spend data shows nobody is doing. It is that the winning move is craft plus transparency: make AI-assisted work good enough that it does not read as cheap, and disclose it, since the disclosure data says honesty costs less than getting caught.
For the full landscape behind these numbers, see the complete 2026 guide to AI in advertising. For the trust and disclosure mechanics specifically, see do you have to disclose AI-generated ads and AI brand safety for advertisers.
Numbers only matter if you can act on them. Start building AI creative on 8frame and run the variant volume the adoption data says your competitors already are. The canvas is free and unlimited; generation is paid from $19/month.