U.S. Ad Spend to Rise 9.5% in 2026 as Agentic AI Takes Center Stage and Linear TV Softens
The IAB's 2026 Outlook Study points to a strong year for marketers: U.S. ad spend is projected to grow 9.5% year over year, helped by the midterm elections and the Olympics. Under the surface, the bigger story is clear-agentic AI is moving from pilot projects to the core stack across planning, activation, and measurement.
Innovation and testing are topping agendas even with macro headwinds. The takeaway: budgets are growing, but the bar for accountability is rising with them.
What's driving the shift
- Agentic AI goes mainstream: Two-thirds of buyers now focus on autonomous decisioning for ad buying and campaign execution.
- Measurement tightens up: Cross-platform measurement usage has climbed to 72%, up from 64% last year-teams want cleaner connections between AI-led execution and outcomes.
- Content meets AI answers: 73% of marketers now prioritize content that performs in AI-generated results, changing how creative and search visibility are planned.
As one IAB leader put it, 2026 isn't about single tools-it's about AI acting like an always-on partner coordinating campaigns in real time. That mindset is spreading fast across media, measurement, creative, and CX.
Channel mix: where budgets are headed
- Digital keeps outrunning the market, with expected gains in social (+14.6%), connected TV (+13.8%), and commerce media (+12.1%).
- Linear TV is projected to dip 1.7%. Big events (Winter Olympics, FIFA World Cup, U.S. midterms) should create short-lived bumps but won't reverse the long-term slide.
New priority stack for 2026
- Top focus: adapting to changing consumer habits (44%), now outranking macroeconomic concerns.
- AI knowledge gap widens: 38% cite learning generative AI as a major challenge, up 14 points from 2025.
- Objectives rebalance: Customer acquisition is still No. 1 (54%) but down 10 points year over year; repeat purchase is up to 25% (nearly double 2024's 13%).
As agentic AI handles budget pacing, audience building, and optimization, retention programs are getting smarter and easier to scale. With commerce media, clean rooms, CRM onboarding, and loyalty programs now reaching millions of known customers, repeat purchase is shifting from "nice to have" to a core growth engine.
What marketers should do next
- Link AI to outcomes: Standardize cross-platform measurement and MMM/MTA baselines so autonomous systems optimize against the metrics you trust.
- Plan for AI answer engines: Build content that answers intent-rich queries clearly, cite sources, and structure pages for entity clarity and snippet eligibility.
- Rebalance media: Lean into social, CTV, and commerce media while using tentpole events to extract efficient reach from linear.
- Double down on first-party data: Connect loyalty, CRM, and commerce audiences through clean rooms; push more experimentation into known-customer journeys.
- Upskill the team: Get hands-on with agentic workflows-budget pacing, creative iteration, audience planning, and QA for automation.
For the full findings, see the IAB's latest research and download the 2026 Outlook Study at iab.com.
Helpful resources
- AI Certification for Marketing Specialists - practical training to build and audit agentic workflows.
- AI courses by job - curated tracks for growth, media, and analytics teams.
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