Lina Hope
As the marketing landscape pivots toward an automated future, artificial intelligence has become the bedrock of social and retail media strategies. Yet, a stark dichotomy has emerged: while brands rush to integrate AI into their performance-marketing workflows, they remain notably hesitant when it comes to Connected TV (CTV) and the nuanced world of influencer partnerships.
According to a proprietary survey conducted by Digiday+ Research in the first quarter of 2026, which polled over 100 industry professionals, the adoption of AI is highly uneven. While nearly half of marketers are leveraging AI for social and retail media, only one-quarter (25%) are doing so for influencer marketing, and a mere 18% have integrated it into their CTV campaigns. This article examines the structural, psychological, and technical barriers keeping these channels in the “slow lane” of the AI revolution.
The Trust Gap: Authenticity vs. Automation in Influencer Marketing
The influencer economy is built on a currency of human connection. When brands deploy AI, they risk devaluing that currency. The 25% of marketers currently utilizing AI in this space are primarily focused on the "back-office" of influence rather than the front-facing creative. Specifically, 75% use AI for data analysis, 63% for content generation, and 56% for outreach management.
The Virtual Influencer Dilemma
The reluctance to fully embrace AI-generated influencers stems from a profound fear of consumer rejection. According to an April 2025 study by the World Federation of Advertisers, 96% of brands shunning virtual influencers cite "consumer trust issues" as their primary rationale.
Virtual influencers—fully AI-generated avatars like the viral sensation Mia Zel—are technically sophisticated, but they lack the lived experience that audiences crave. For brands, the risk of the "uncanny valley" effect can result in a loss of brand equity, making them wary of replacing human creators with digital constructs.
Data-Driven Human Discovery
While the influencers themselves remain human, the process of finding them has become heavily automated. Agencies like Later are leveraging AI to match campaign briefs with creators, using historical engagement data to predict ROI. As CEO Scott Sutton noted, the shift is a response to market reality: "The mechanics of operating creative programs in a highly effective way require you to use more influencers—generally smaller to mid-sized ones—in a more targeted way." Manual organization is no longer feasible when scaling to hundreds of creators.
On the creator side, the adoption is more aggressive. A report from Wondercraft indicates that 80% of creators now use AI in their daily workflows. Tools like POP.STORE’s "AI ECHO ME" program act as virtual agents, filtering through the deluge of DMs and brand inquiries that often overwhelm creators. "Creators are basically chickens with their heads cut off," says POP.STORE CEO Gautam Goswami. By automating the triage of business communications, AI is allowing creators to reclaim time for genuine creative output.
The CTV Slowdown: Why Streaming Remains Broadcast-Minded
If influencer marketing is held back by the human element, CTV is held back by legacy mindsets and technical fragmentation. A staggering 82% of marketers surveyed are not currently using AI for their CTV campaigns.
From Broadcast to Addressable
The root of this lag lies in the history of the medium. "AI adoption in CTV has historically lagged because TV was built on a broadcast mindset, whereas social media was built on data," explains Brian Albert, managing director of U.S. video deals and creative works at YouTube.
However, the industry is at an inflection point. CTV is evolving from a reach-based medium to an addressable one. Advertisers are increasingly moving away from geography-based targeting in favor of first-party data, attention signals, and contextual intelligence. Harry Browne, VP of innovation at the agency Tinuiti, notes, "AI is starting to creep into the CTV space, first and foremost through audience and contextual targeting."
The "Precious" Nature of TV Creative
Despite the push toward automation, there is a psychological barrier regarding creative quality. "CTV is the type of creative that advertisers are most precious about," says Browne. "They have the most pride in what they put on the biggest screen in the house. There is a hesitancy to turn that over to an AI, where if something looks a little bit off, it could make the whole creative fall apart."
This is a stark contrast to social media, where high-frequency, low-fidelity content is the norm. In CTV, the production values must remain high, leading to a cautious approach toward generative AI.
Chronology: The Evolution of AI in Media Buying
- 2024 (Q4): Amazon launches AI Creative Studio and Audio Generator, signaling a move to democratize high-end creative production for streaming platforms.
- 2025 (April): The World Federation of Advertisers releases a landmark study confirming that 96% of major brands are avoiding virtual influencers due to trust concerns.
- 2025 (October): At the Digiday AI Marketing Strategies event, industry leaders highlight the use of LLMs to analyze first-party CRM data to build customer personas.
- 2026 (March): Agencies begin reporting significant efficiency gains in influencer discovery through AI-driven matching tools.
- 2026 (April): Researchers and Netflix employees debut "VOID," an AI tool capable of removing objects and altering video in real-time, hinting at the future of virtual product placement.
Case Studies: AI in Action
Beekman 1802: Humanizing Data
Skin care brand Beekman 1802 serves as a prime example of "back-office" AI success. By feeding Shopify and CRM data into a large language model, the brand identified distinct customer personas that now drive their product messaging. "We were able to throw all of our data at a large language model and really understand deeply who this consumer is," says Chief Digital Officer David Baker. This is AI used not to replace human interaction, but to better inform the brand’s understanding of its human customers.
Roku and the Democratization of TV
Roku’s Ads Manager has become a testing ground for small and mid-sized businesses that were previously locked out of TV advertising. By partnering with AI companies to handle creative production, Roku has lowered the barrier to entry. While VP of ad marketing Sarah Harms acknowledges that there is "a lot of bad AI content out there," she suggests that CTV’s walled-garden approach allows for greater quality control than the open-web nature of social platforms.
Future Implications: The Path to Automation
The trajectory for the next two years suggests a slow, deliberate migration toward AI-enhanced CTV and influencer campaigns.
- The Rise of "Agentic" Influencer Tools: As tools like POP.STORE gain traction, the "middle class" of influencers will become significantly more efficient. By automating administrative overhead, the industry will see an increase in the number of small-to-medium partnerships, driving the long-tail of the creator economy.
- Structural Shifts in CTV: As measurement silos break down and identity resolution becomes more standardized, the "fragmentation" cited by experts like Cory Treffiletti will diminish. Once the structural barriers are lowered, the hesitancy regarding AI creative will likely be replaced by a desire for the cost-efficiency AI provides.
- The "VOID" Effect: Innovations like the VOID tool demonstrate that AI will eventually move from the planning phase to the production phase of TV. Being able to retroactively insert or remove products from video content will fundamentally change the economics of TV advertising, turning static library content into dynamic, shoppable inventory.
Ultimately, the hesitation observed in the 2026 survey is not a rejection of AI, but a calibration of it. Brands have learned that while AI is an unparalleled engine for data analysis and logistical efficiency, it is not yet a replacement for the human touch required in high-stakes creative and influencer-led community building. As the technology matures, the "precious" nature of the big screen and the "authentic" nature of the creator will be protected by, not replaced by, the algorithms that support them.
Siti Muinah
Lina Irawan
