Amazon Bets AI Can Rewrite the Upfront Playbook in a Fragmented TV Market

We’re talking a lot about agentic shopping. AI is no doubt changing how customers discover and buy, and brands need to be ready. Agentic shopping is not just the new frontier. It’s happening now, and so Amazon is uniquely positioned because we sit at the intersection of content, deterministic signals, and commerce. The brands that are going to win will be the ones that show up in the right moments with the right message as AI-driven shopping experiences evolve.

We’ve already seen contextual, AI-based ads from Amazon. What can we expect moving forward?

In terms of AI, I continue to believe in the creative space that it’s transformational, that you can take some base assets from a brand, and it just allows those assets to now be able to be applied to a whole bunch of other surfaces and placements. That provides a scalability for businesses that hasn’t existed in the past.

Also, pause ads and other formats where we can better use AI to, in real time, link the content with a relevant ad on the fly is something we continue to be excited about. Interactive for us and native formats continue to be an area of focus, having ads that are more engaging, relevant experiences for viewers is no doubt key. We feel like we have been at the forefront of expanding interactive video ads, and now we’re bringing them to premium, third-party streaming environments. For the first time, we’ve started with Samsung TV Plus. And looking ahead, we’ll have more to say here, so stay tuned.

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