The AI Apocalypse of Advertising: Everything Will Change in 2026

I confess, I say it without shame: I've always loved ads. The artistic ones, the funny ones, the weird or touching ones... TV commercials, before the term "short-form video" even existed, were essentially the TikTok of my childhood. But like other creative things in my life, artificial intelligence is sucking the joy out of this too. And this year, it seems this suction power is set to increase exponentially.

Ads are mini-films, posters, illustrations, or photo shoots produced with an underlying purpose. The goal is to etch the product they're marketing into your brain as quickly as possible. This requires serious creativity and, in some cases, a considerable production budget. While the creative side of me enjoys seeing the fruits of this labor, it also makes ads an ideal testing ground for generative AI technology, as brands race to make content production faster and cheaper.

The Numbers of Change: Marketers' Love for AI

Last year, many image and video generator models recorded major visual improvements. This pushed more advertisers to use these tools in their campaigns. According to a Marketing Week study, more than half of the 1,000 brand marketers surveyed used some form of AI in their creative campaigns in 2025. Another study by the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) revealed that 90% of advertisers used or planned to use generative AI for video ads in 2025. The same study predicts that by 2026, such tools will be used in 40% of all ads.

That's why we're seeing more and more AI-generated ads on TV, in magazines, and on social media platforms. Some, like Coca-Cola's somewhat 'tacky' holiday ads, openly state they use generative AI. But most are tight-lipped about it. This makes us suspicious of almost anything that looks a bit "off" to us.

Faces from the Uncanny Valley and Morphing Faces

Sometimes, we encounter situations where people give off an uncanny valley feeling. Like in McDonald's and DoorDash ads... People look too polished, move in unnatural ways. Or inconsistent morphing effects that don't seem intentional... Like in the Original Source shower gel ad, for example. Why does that man's face keep changing? Why are they constantly trying to turn him into a Memoji?

But even if the AI production in ads seems obvious to some of us, detecting AI in the real world is a skill most people aren't good at yet. Think about it, your brain doesn't automatically run an "authenticity scan" for that 30-second spot before the evening news. Not yet.

So what does this mean? As the advertising industry continues to adopt AI to speed up and cheapen creative processes, serious questions will arise about the quality and "authenticity" of the content we encounter. Costs may drop for brands, but the emotional connection established with the consumer could also weaken. Can the sincerity of that emotional Coca-Cola ad be found in facial expressions generated by an algorithm?

What's striking is that this transition isn't limited to big-budget companies. The fact that a platform called Kalshi, mentioned in the article, could make its ad for only $2000 shows that small businesses also have increasing access to this technology. This means the volume and diversity of the ad flood we encounter in the digital world will increase exponentially. Who will set the quality standard, and how?

Perhaps the most important question is this: Will AI kill the creative spirit of advertising, or will it simply create a new form of expression as a tool? Just as digital effects enriched cinema... However, the current picture points to an abundance of fast, cheap, and often 'flawed' content. Get ready for 2026. From now on, you'll start wondering with every 30 seconds you watch whether what you're seeing is the product of human creativity or the output of a cold algorithm. This is a turning point that will fundamentally change our media consumption habits.