WARC adspend forecast: The era of ‘super intelligence’
Excerpt from Decision Marketing's WARC adspend forecast: The era of ‘super intelligence
This week’s WARC Media Global Ad Spend Forecast Q3 2026 update reveals global adspend is forecast to grow 11.9% to reach $1.34trn (£1.02trn) this year, despite consumer caution.
While AI is driving the increase, social media, search and retail media are three of the biggest channels for ad investment; together they are expected to account for 66.4% of total global ad spend in 2026, rising to 70.0% in 2028.
Meanwhile, video on-demand (15.1% to $48.4bn), retail media (14.3% to $202.1bn), search (14.2% to $295.7bn) and digital OOH (13.7% to $21.7bn) will also see double-digit increases this year.
The report draws its own conclusions, but Decision Marketing asks leading industry professionals for their take and finds that, while AI appears to be king, in this new era, getting the best marketing intelligence is just as crucial.
Over at Limelight, co-founder and chief revenue officer James Macdonald reckons that while the forecast shows plenty of growth in advertising, it also highlights just how concentrated that spend remains, with a very large share sitting within a handful of major platforms.
He continues: “For the rest of the ecosystem, that makes the question of control increasingly important. We’re seeing more businesses look closely at how much of their media operation they actually control, from the technology they use to the partners and supply and demand relationships behind it.
“The aim isn’t to rebuild everything in-house, but to have the flexibility to choose how you operate and who you work with. As the market grows, that independence becomes increasingly valuable.”
