Netflix arrived at upfront week with a pitch built for the AI moment—and an ambition to make buying ads on the platform as automated as watching them.
The centerpiece of the streaming giant’s advertising push is a suite of new AI tools that allow advertisers to build and optimize media plans around their brand objectives, while a separate set of AI agents can manage, optimize, and purchase ads on the platform autonomously. A third AI tool allows brands to adapt existing creative assets to fit different formats—vertical video, pause ads—without building from scratch.
The rollout extends an AI bet Netflix first placed last year, when it gave advertisers technology to match their creative to specific shows and films on the platform. Brands including DoorDash, Target, and TurboTax have tested the tool, and Netflix said it has significantly improved both quality and execution. The company plans to expand it to all ad-supported regions by year’s end.
“If the last couple of years were about proving we’re a durable player, this year is about establishing ourselves as a formidable one,” said Amy Reinhard, Netflix’s president of advertising, at its fourth upfront.
Netflix is also widening its geographic footprint, announcing plans to bring its ad-supported tier to 15 new countries in 2027, including Austria, Belgium, Colombia, Denmark, Indonesia, and Ireland.
The expansion pitch leaned heavily on scale. Netflix claims its ads reach more than 250 million global monthly active viewers, with over 80% of its ad-supported members actively watching each week. Netflix is translating this scale into more ad inventory across podcasts and vertical video for buyers, releasing it in 2027.
The company is also broadening how that inventory can be bought, expanding its programmatic capabilities to pause ads and live content via Dynamic Ad Insertion, and ad buyers can now purchase Netflix inventory through its preferred DSP partners directly.
The company is enabling programmatic audience targeting across all ad-supported countries on Amazon DSP by June 1, with Yahoo DSP to follow in the months ahead.
For years, Netflix’s advertising business was more promises than product, a fast-growing but nascent tier that asked buyers to take a lot on faith. Today’s presentation was an argument that the infrastructure has caught up to the ambition.
The momentum is showing up in the financials: Netflix is on pace to double its ad revenue for the second consecutive year, with the business projected to hit $3 billion in 2026, ADWEEK previously reported.
Regarding the streamer’s programming, Bela Bajaria, chief content officer, said Netflix is investing $20 billion in entertainment, including live sports such as the NFL.
The company has signed a four-year partnership extension with the NFL through the 2029-2030 season, streaming a Week 1 game, a Thanksgiving Eve matchup, one Christmas Day game, a Week 18 regular-season game, and the NFL Honors.
