# Marketers Shift Budgets Toward AI Capabilities > Source: > Published: 2026-06-17 02:24:08.350545+00:00 # Marketers Shift Budgets Toward AI Capabilities Mediaocean published its **2026 H2 Market Report**, which Mumbrella summarises as finding that marketers are moving from AI experimentation to practical deployment. According to Mediaocean's report (via Mumbrella), **75%** of marketers named AI the most important consumer trend, adoption of AI for data analysis reached **50%**, and usage for creative development and personalisation rose more than **50%** year over year. The share of marketers saying AI is causing a major transformation in workflows fell from **28%** to **19%**, per the report. Mediaocean also found **60%** of marketers plan to increase spend in **AI Media**, **89%** plan to maintain or increase investment in **CTV**, and **35%** are moving away from spreadsheet workflows toward API-driven automation and direct-to-publisher transactions. ### What happened Mediaocean released its **2026 H2 Market Report**, which Mumbrella summarises as documenting a budget shift toward operational AI in marketing. According to Mediaocean's report (reported by Mumbrella), **75%** of marketers identified AI as the most important consumer trend; AI adoption for data analysis reached **50%**; usage for creative development and personalisation increased more than **50%** year over year. The report also records a decline in the share of marketers who say AI is producing a major workflow transformation, from **28%** to **19%**. Additional findings attributed to the report include **60%** of marketers planning to increase spend in **AI Media**, **89%** planning to maintain or increase investment in **CTV**, and **35%** moving away from spreadsheet-based workflows toward API-driven automation and direct-to-publisher transactions. ### Editorial analysis - technical context Industry-pattern observations: Marketers' movement from experimentation to specific AI use cases typically elevates the importance of production-ready data infrastructure, model monitoring, and automation around creative supply chains. In comparable transitions, demand rises for tooling that integrates model outputs into campaign orchestration, measurement, and content-personalisation pipelines rather than one-off prototype experiments. ### Industry context Industry observers note that the reported uptick in budget for **AI Media** and sustained investment in **CTV** reflects two concurrent trends in advertising tech: greater allocation to programmatic and AI-driven media buying, and continued prioritisation of streaming channels for audience reach. These patterns increase the need for cross-channel attribution and real-time optimisation capabilities in ad tech stacks. ### What to watch For practitioners and vendors: watch adoption signals such as procurement of API-first automation platforms, growth in creative automation tool contracts, and vendor integrations that expose model scoring and measurement hooks directly to media-buying systems. Observers should also track whether the drop from **28%** to **19%** in perceiving AI as a workflow-transforming force corresponds with longer procurement cycles or a shift toward incremental efficiency gains rather than wholesale restructuring. ### Limitations The summaries above paraphrase Mediaocean's report as presented by Mumbrella. The report's methodology and sample details are not reproduced here; readers should consult the original Mediaocean release for sampling and survey methodology. ## Scoring Rationale The story documents measurable shifts in marketer budgets and adoption rates that affect tooling, data pipelines, and media-buying workflows. It is notable for practitioners integrating AI into production advertising systems but not a frontier research or platform release. Practice with real Ad Tech data 90 SQL & Python problems · 15 industry datasets [Active Search Campaigns by BudgetEasy](/problems/sql/active-search-campaigns-by-budget) [High CPC Clicks & Poor Landing PagesMedium](/problems/sql/high-cpc-clicks-poor-landing-page) [Campaign ROAS by Attribution ModelHard](/problems/sql/campaign-roas-by-attribution-model) 250 free problems · No credit card [See all Ad Tech problems](/problems/datasets/adtech)