How, when and where AI will upend the advertising value chain ended up dominating the discussion at the eighth annual Advertising Day hosted by MoffettNathanson. Just how artificial intelligence will impact advertising yielded the use of a favorite quote from The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway … even as the financial analyst house misspelled the author’s surname in its investor note.
On the gradual side, Senior Analysts Rob Fishman, Michael Morton and Michael Nathanson argue that the impact of Gen AI is — and has been — most pronounced at the world’s largest ad platforms, which have continued to take incremental market share by what they consider to be “demonstrably better targeting, engagement and performant creative.”
As for the “suddenly” part, the analysts comment, “We can’t pinpoint the quarter in which the dam breaks and mass-market behavior shifts, but, like most things we have seen in our media careers, it seems rather inevitable that the adoption of this new technology will re-order the ad industry.”
The analysts add that it seems “logical” that today’s platforms will remain winners as long as they both spend on technology and don’t cede a meaningful share of engagement to new upstarts. Yet, that is the very debate.
“How will broad adoption of agentic tools impact consumer appreciation of the information value chain and consumer behavior in ecommerce?” they ask. “There are other places in the ad world like advertising agency models in creative services built on full-time hours employed or non-premium open internet content where the long-term outcome seems clearer.”
In fact, the analysts conclude, “the equity markets smell blood in the waters, as they have rightly done before in media, and have already rightly marked down valuations ahead of number cuts to come.”
This led MoffettNathanson to now estimate that its total 2025 U.S. ad growth forecast will be slightly above prior estimates at 6.3%, compared to its prior estimate of 6%. It is nearly all thanks to online ad dollar activity.
“We continue to expect strong growth from the digital channels, more than offsetting contractions in traditional media,” the analysts conclude.
