CTV and AI Budgets Are Rising. Fragmentation Still Stalls Scale.
Marketers are pushing more budget into channels they can measure and move fast. In the first half of 2026, 63% plan to increase spend in connected TV, tying CTV with digital display and video for the biggest gains. Social is close behind at 61%. Retail media stays steady, with 40% increasing and 53% holding budgets.
Linear TV continues to slip. Thirty-six percent plan to cut local TV and 34% plan to cut national TV. Dollars are following flexibility, accountability, and clearer reporting.
Programmatic Momentum (with a CTV Tilt)
Programmatic budgets keep growing. Fifty-eight percent of buyers plan to increase programmatic spend in 2026, while 24% will hold steady. Buyers now expect to allocate an average of 26% of media budgets to programmatic CTV, up three points year over year.
Growth is being funded by shifts, not just net-new dollars. Among marketers increasing CTV spend, 45% are reallocation from linear TV, and nearly a quarter are pulling from desktop and mobile. Only 16% expect new incremental dollars to flow into CTV, down from 20% in 2025.
AI Media and Creators Move Up the List
Two categories are breaking through: AI media (ads on AI agents) and influencer/creator marketing. Fifty-four percent and 53% of marketers, respectively, plan to increase investment. The appetite is there, but execution still needs work.
What Marketers Value Most
Performance-driven paid media tops the priority list at 51%. Brand advertising and measurement and attribution are next, both at 48%. This is a signal: winning plans connect short-term performance with brand growth, then prove it with clean measurement.
GenAI: Big Interest, Patchy Use
Despite the buzz, actual usage trails intent. Only 43% use genAI for data analysis or market research, 33% for creative development, and 19% for campaign orchestration. Usage has even dipped since May-evidence of a gap between ideas and outcomes.
Still, AI and cross-platform orchestration are rising investment areas, each cited by 39% of marketers. The shift is clear: teams are moving from channel tweaks to building unified systems that can plan, activate, and measure in one motion.
Fragmentation: The Biggest Drag on Performance
Fifty-six percent of marketers say fragmentation across platforms and publishers is their top challenge. Cross-channel measurement and optimization follow at 49%. Concerns about balancing AI adoption with brand safety, accuracy, and creative control hit 43%, and 42% worry automation will reduce human oversight.
CTV's older pain points are still there, but easing. Frequency management dropped from 38% to 30% as a cited issue-likely because teams now see the deeper issue: siloed systems and messy signals. The real problem isn't buying across channels; it's seeing how those channels interact and making decisions fast.
Tech Stack Reality Check
AI adoption is getting blocked by the same old silos. Forty-one percent cite difficulty connecting AI insights across systems, and 39% report integration issues with current stacks. Only 10% say their ad tech is fully connected across CTV, social, display, and retail media.
Nearly half have partially unified systems with major gaps-leading to waste in measurement, creative deployment, and pacing. With 86% saying orchestration is at least somewhat important (and more than half saying extremely important), the takeaway is blunt: modernize your infrastructure or accept slower growth.
What To Do Now: A 2026 Action Plan
- Rebalance TV: Shift more budget from linear into CTV where you can measure and control frequency. Aim to be near the market's 26% average for programmatic CTV, then adjust by incrementality and CPA.
- Build an orchestration spine: Pick a system of record for audiences, creative, and measurement. Connect CTV, social, display, and retail media data. Standardize naming, events, and taxonomy across platforms.
- Make AI useful (not theoretical): Lock 2-3 repeatable use cases-forecasting and budget reallocation, creative versioning and testing, daily bid/pace adjustments. Add brand safety and human review gates.
- Tighten measurement: Pair MMM or incrementality tests with platform lift studies. Track blended CAC, ROAS, and reach/frequency across CTV + social to see overlap and reduce waste.
- Fix frequency and duplication: Use identity solutions and cross-publisher controls to cap exposure across CTV apps. Set weekly ceilings and monitor effective reach, not just impressions.
- Creator and AI media pilots: Carve out small, controlled tests for creators and AI agents. Use clear success criteria (CPA, view-through lift, assisted conversions) and scale only if it clears your benchmark.
- Data discipline: Enforce a shared taxonomy, event hygiene, and UTM standards. Small operational wins here compound across every channel.
Sources and Further Reading
Explore the latest insights from the organizations cited in this report:
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