8 AI and tech predictions for the TV upfronts

Technology is changing the way TV ad inventory is bought and sold; those transformations often come into the spotlight during the upfront season, when streamers and network groups show off their flashiest innovations for marketers to implement into long-term partnerships. The 2025 TV Upfront and NewFronts calendar However, the season for bulk budget commitments also makes evident the areas in which traditional media may not be keeping up with modern marketing demands. Ad Age surveyed top buyers and sellers to hear what the most impactful technologies will be for this year’s upfront talks, as well as what advertiser needs aren’t being met in the marketplace. Among the responses, different implementations of AI—or capabilities masquerading as AI—have risen to the top, including those for building more granular audience insights into targeted media as well as better personalization and placement of ads. Plus, the use of metrics measuring business outcomes may become more prominent in this year’s deals as economic volatility persists. Read more: How TV upfront spending will change amid economic volatility However, with innovation comes cost, and some predict a reset in what has become known as the “ad tech tax” for activating new capabilities, especially as marketing budgets remain uncertain. Responses have been edited for length and clarity. Evan Adlman, executive VP of commercial sales and revenue operations, AMC Networks Most impactful: The use of performance-based products that can deliver some kind of guarantee on [marketers’] campaigns will be a big factor this year. Advertisers are looking for results, and the industry now has the data and delivery technologies to deliver on that. Most needed: Further integration of shoppable applications that connect viewers to the ability to make a purchase, whether via the remote or their handheld device, would be a powerful and timely innovation. It’s something that has been talked about for many years, and there are still very limited ways to do it. Remember Jennifer Aniston’s sweater? Jay Askinasi, senior VP, head of global media revenue and growth, Roku Most impactful: The expected answer to this question would be AI. In reality, as AI has exploded into our ecosystem, it has done so in a fragmented way across a number of AI providers, tools and practitioners. … But for now, the AI tools are only as powerful as the raw data that feeds them. This year, we may see a big push for data collaboration to allow large buyers to normalize big data across the media ecosystem to develop AI-driven tools for deployment in the future. Most needed: With steady advances in available inventory, bid density and measurement, three-quarters of all CTV transactions were programmatic in 2024, according to the IAB. … Advertisers now routinely require data to be portable and comparable across platforms in order to understand their streaming campaigns’ real contribution to marketing KPIs—and plan future investments accordingly. For marketers and agencies across the board, the single biggest factor driving adoption of programmatic CTV may be the opportunity to more easily measure outcomes of streaming campaigns alongside other channels. Andrew Corry, senior VP, group director, strategic investment, IPG Mediabrands Most impactful: We believe there will be an emphasis on outcomes-based TV buying. Using more first- and third-party data to illustrate that TV, even outside of direct response, shows real-time and real-world ROAS [return on ad spend]. As more sophisticated measurement solutions become available, they will allow broadcast partners to illustrate their lower funnel value. Of course, this will be wrapped in a lovely bow and referred to as AI. Most needed: Unified cross-channel measurement tools continue to grow and evolve; however, the need and desire for it outpaces its evolution. Stephano Kim, chief strategy and operations officer, advertising sales, Fox Corporation Most impactful: There is a lot of buzz about [generative] AI, but we are seeing a growing number of partners and customers experiment with AI-driven audience modeling and segmentation as well as advanced targeting using AI models to potentially replace current identity infrastructures. Most needed: It’s clear to us that the industry is repeating past mistakes by trying to fit legacy programmatic infrastructure into the CTV space. This is causing a tremendous amount of friction in our customers’ ability to buy and properly leverage our advanced CTV ad capabilities, not to mention the level of ad tech taxes continues to rise in order to pay all these middle layers of the ad tech ecosystem. We need solutions to make CTV ad delivery more efficient for our customers so that we can improve ROAS for advertisers of all sizes. Cara Lewis, chief investment and activation officer, Dentsu Most impactful: It’s not industry tools driving real impact right now—it’s the innovation happening within agencies. By building custom products and leveraging technology, agencies are creating smarter, more relevant ways to optimize and deliver video ads. While increased tech comes with added cost, the ability to reach the right consumer at the right moment makes the investment worthwhile. Most needed: We’ve hit a breaking point with the tech tax. While digital advertising across social, search and programmatic channels has long carried these added costs, video has traditionally been an exception. Now, as video begins to absorb similar fees, clients are feeling the squeeze—facing tighter budgets, higher performance expectations and fewer GRPs [gross ratings points] as more dollars are diverted to cover tech costs. This is something we need to help resolve. Ryan McConville, executive VP, chief product officer, advertising platforms and operations, NBCUniversal Most impactful: Enhanced contextual targeting capabilities will transform this year’s upfront marketplace by eliminating inefficiencies in traditionally manual-driven systems. With AI and machine learning tools helping refine how we contextually serve ad creatives in real-time, advertisers will achieve more precise, scalable audience alignment with confidence and peace of mind. This application is all about both automation and optimization coming together at a level that wasn’t previously possible. Most needed: Marketers need their ad dollars to work harder in a multi-platform marketplace and a simple, but massively effective, tool is an industry shift to a standardized Ad-ID process for digital video. Without a standardized Ad-ID, brands are losing critical insights into how a campaign is performing, making it harder to measure the true outcome and the validity of their ad buys. By ensuring the proper ID is carried throughout the programmatic advertising supply chain, we can actively enable cross-platform, cross-publisher reporting on frequency and reach. The infrastructure to make this happen already exists; now, it’s about the industry coming together with the willpower to drive meaningful change. Travis Scoles, executive VP, advanced advertising, Paramount Most impactful: Clean rooms will play a key role, but maybe not in the way people have predicted over the past few years. While clean room integrations between agencies and advertisers continue to proliferate, the technology, at its core, is just infrastructure to collaborate with data. I’d look to clean room-powered attribution solutions—whether they sit at the agency or with a measurement company—to impact how advertisers think about their spend allocations. Most needed: Identity management workflows. The industry has made near-universal investments in identity data, but connecting that data across partners remains inconsistent. We now have a clearer understanding of the challenges, but a scalable adopted solution hasn’t seen widespread adoption yet. Alex Stone, senior VP, advanced video & agency partnerships, Horizon Media Most impactful: We will begin to see AI influence contextual targeting through more purposeful alignment of ads within programming and pods most relevant to the messaging of our advertisers based on mood, content genre or time of day. As this technology is introduced, new packaging and pricing models will emerge that enable advertisers to carve out the inventory that matters most to them. Most needed: The convergence of outcomes measurement with AI capabilities holds the most potential for an advertiser’s approach to upfronts. AI predictive analytics has the potential to analyze viewership data to predict desired behaviors. This would help agencies and advertisers determine optimal frequency for performance while avoiding viewer fatigue. Join Ad Age at the Data-Driven Marketing Playbook on May 22

8 AI and tech predictions for the TV upfronts

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