Key Points:

• Marketers continue to invest in media despite economic uncertainty.
• Connected TV leads in planned spending increases (58%), followed by Social Media (56%) and Digital Video & Display (52%).
• Search ad spend saw the sharpest decline (-22%), likely due to AI-based search alternatives.
• Generative artificial intelligence cited as the top consumer trend by 72% of respondents (+15% from late 2024); AI agents are increasingly integrated into CRMs and creative workflows.

Despite ongoing economic uncertainty, marketers are expressing strong confidence in returns on ad buys against streaming video apps, connected TV platforms and other forms of digital media heading into the second half of 2025.

That is according to a survey of more than 460 marketing professionals across agencies, brands, media firms and tech platforms, the findings of which were outlined in Mediaocean‘s “2025 H2 Market Report” released this week.

With overall marketing budgets getting tighter due to economic turbulence brought on by geopolitical issues, advertisers are prioritizing performance-driven platforms, with connected TV at the top of the list of media channels preferred by ad buyers, brands and agencies.

Fifty-eight percent (58 percent) of respondents to Mediaocean’s survey said they intend to increase their budgets against connected TV platforms within the next six months. Social media platforms will also see an increase in ad spending, with 56 percent of buyers and agencies affirming their intent to take advantage of more digital ad opportunities there. Digital display and video came in third, with 52 percent of buyers and agencies affirming their intent to spend more.

Artificial intelligence tools are cited as a driven reason behind the increase in ad spending across some formats, with brands and agencies believing that AI tools like ChatGPT and Google Gemini are changing the way that consumers discover — and ultimately buy — new products and services.

Generative AI was cited as the top consumer trend by 72 percent of respondents, up 15 points from late 2024. The report highlights breakthroughs in multimodal AI models like GPT-4.5, Claude 4, and Gemini 2.5, as well as creative tools such as OpenAI’s Sora and Runway Gen-3. Use cases range from data analysis and market research to creative functions like copywriting, image generation, and website development, the latter of which saw a 70 percent increase in adoption.

“Marketers are moving beyond experimentation, embedding AI into core marketing functions,” the report concludes. “Creative optimization is poised for disruption through AI-driven copy, imagery, and versioning.”

As earlier reported by The Desk, AI tools are also changing the way marketers allocate their digital ad budgets: A report from Futuri Media said ChatGPT, Gemini and other AI-driven, answer-based platforms are pushing marketers to invest more in connected TV and digital media platforms in a way that deprioritizes investments in broadcast TV, radio and billboards. The tools are using publicly-available data to prioritize performance-based platforms and are placing less of an emphasis on reach and outcomes, Futuri said.

Some of those trends were reflected in Mediaocean’s report as well, with 28 percent of marketers saying they feel dynamic, personalized ads like the type made possible by digital ad platforms mattered the most. Around one-quarter of those surveyed said reach, frequency and outcomes mattered the most, the report said.

Among the challenges faced by marketers, more than half said fragmented measurement and data silos remained major hurdles when it came to developing and executing on their ad strategies — something that was also noted in Futuri’s report on how AI was influencing ad budget allocation across platforms.