Report: Dentsu shows how AI is revolutionizing advertising impact

In its "Accelerating Media Impact with AI in 2026" report, Dentsu Central Europe shows how artificial intelligence (AI) is becoming a key growth driver for brands. The analysis makes it clear that conventional methods of planning, activation and measurement are no longer sufficient in today's fragmented attention economy. Brands that use AI not just selectively, but as a strategic lever, tap into new efficiency potential, strengthen their operational performance and increase their relevance in an increasingly competitive communication space.

Attention as the hardest currency of communication

In a media landscape in which touchpoints, content and platforms are increasing exponentially, attention is becoming the hardest currency of communication. The analysis shows that traditional planning and measurement methods are increasingly reaching their limits in this fragmented attention situation. People encounter around 84 minutes of advertising every day - but only around 9 minutes of this makes it into the consumer's actual "relevant set". This remaining span is the decisive moment of advertising impact, because only messages that are perceived attentively can trigger brand awareness, emotions or buying impulses.

The Attention Economy thus acts as a strategic framework that illustrates why AI-based technologies are no longer "nice to have", but a real competitive advantage: They help brands to identify, use and maximize precisely those scarce moments of attention. The decisive factor here is not just that advertising is played out, but whether it is noticed - and whether it is remembered. The report shows that brands that measure perception instead of just playout can predict their branding success up to three times more accurately than companies that continue to rely exclusively on traditional viewability metrics.

AI as a strategic lever for the entire marketing value chain

Around 56% of marketing professionals worldwide already use AI tools - primarily in content creation, social media management, email optimization and personalization. However, this use to date has only scratched the surface. Only now is AI beginning to unleash its full potential across the entire marketing value chain and fundamentally transform marketing organizations.

Agentic and generative AI enable a completely new quality of marketing planning. AI-based forecasts, scenario simulations and dynamic budget allocation enable teams to make informed decisions - no longer based on outdated reports, but on models that are constantly learning and adapting to market changes. This transforms the planning phase from a static annual process into a reactive, continuous decision-making cycle that reduces risks and identifies opportunities earlier.

In the activation phase, AI ensures a new form of precision and efficiency. Automated bid optimization, target group models, highly granular segmentation and creative rotation in real time mean that campaigns are not only created faster, but are continuously improved - based on thousands of micro-signals from user behavior. What used to be optimized manually in weekly cycles now takes place every second and is fully automated, which contributes significantly to increased performance.

Generative AI transforms content with measurable effects

Generative AI enables a radical acceleration and professionalization of creative processes. Where teams used to need days or weeks to create different versions of texts, images or videos, complete creative variants can now be produced, tested and optimized in just a few minutes.

Personalized creatives, dynamic image and video creation as well as automated text creation create a new form of creative scaling: content is not only produced faster, but also adapted to target groups, moods, contexts and channels in real time. This ensures demonstrably higher relevance when addressing users - and therefore significantly better performance along the entire funnel.

The effects are measurable: up to 41% higher conversion rates because creatives are tailored more precisely to user needs and more frequently set the right emotional triggers. 32% lower production costs, as time-consuming manual work steps are no longer necessary and content variants can be generated automatically. Over 25 percent higher engagement rates because dynamic content performs better, can be iterated more quickly and is continuously developed in A/B tests.

Agentic AI: 89 percent of CMOs expect a strong impact

Marketing managers worldwide expect enormous transformative effects from so-called agentic AI - AI systems that independently prioritize tasks, prepare decisions and orchestrate processes. The potential is high, but challenges such as data quality, integration, transparency and the responsible use of AI must be consistently addressed so that Agentic AI can develop its full value creation potential in a secure, scalable and trustworthy manner.

AI allows previously fragmented data sources - from media KPIs and customer signals to CRM data - to be linked to form a central intelligence hub. This creates a complete, consistent view of the customer journey and enables attribution models that go far beyond simple last-click logic. The result: better control, more robust decisions and measurably higher marketing efficiency.

"We are at a decisive turning point: artificial intelligence is making our media strategies more precise and measurably more effective. At a time when attention is scarce, this is a significant advantage. The technology uncovers hidden inefficiencies and consistently protects budgets from wastage. What drives me in particular? AI does not replace our intuition for brands. On the contrary: it gives us back the space we need for strategy and bold ideas. This creates communication that really moves people. For brands, one thing is clear: those who integrate AI intelligently today are not relying on a brief hype. Instead, their own foundation grows healthily with the new requirements. This creates real value and a competitive advantage that will last into the future," comments René Schaub, Group Head Web & App Development at Dentsu.