NEWS
The 6 big ideas from CES 2026 that are defining what's next in advertising
January 9, 2025 | Matt Miller, Senior Content Manager
The advertising industry has spent years talking about what's possible: authenticated identity, AI-powered optimization, and truly integrated campaigns. At CES 2026, those conversations shifted from aspiration to application.
"CES is the beginning of understanding customers, advertisers, and agencies' goals for the year, to work backwards from them and prioritize them," said Alan Moss, VP of Global Ad Sales at Amazon Ads. "It's the opportunity to start talking about how we can help them to realize those goals, and—as they're thinking about them—building a path to the upfronts and what's coming."
Throughout CES week, leaders at Amazon Ads and across the industry laid out the roadmap of the year to come, about where advertising is headed, and what it means for how brands connect with audiences. Here are the six biggest ideas and announcements from CES 2026 and what they reveal about what's next in advertising.
1. The era of guessing is ending
The industry has quietly accepted a fundamental compromise: we approximate who's seeing our ads because precise recognition seemed impossible at scale. That era is ending. "Understanding and recognizing your audiences is the key to advertising success," said Paul Kotas, SVP of Amazon Ads. "We're not just guessing—we're knowing."
This shift isn't incremental—it's transformational. It's about creating a unified view of audiences across touchpoints that makes full-funnel advertising genuinely possible. Amazon Marketing Cloud and AWS Clean Rooms create a privacy-forward environment where brands can connect their data with authenticated signals. The result: a continuous feedback loop that connects media exposure to actual shopping behavior.
Converting engagement into sales isn't about chasing more clicks—it's about trusted signals, rapid learning, and acting on real customer behavior.
2. Consumers want to engage with your ads
Viewers are no longer satisfied just watching ads. They want to interact with them. At CES, Amazon Ads and Publicis Media showcased new research that shows how interactive video ads are changing how advertising works on streaming TV. The research revealed that interactive formats on Prime Video can help transform ads from interruptions into invitations. When viewers can explore products or make choices within ad narratives, engagement metrics improve across every dimension. More importantly, audiences who choose to interact signal intent in ways passive viewing never could. The brands that succeed are rethinking what an ad can be.
3. AI is removing complexity and creating competitive advantage
The conversation about AI in advertising has fundamentally changed. We're no longer debating whether AI will transform the industry—we're watching it happen in real time. But the transformation isn't just about better audience strategies or faster optimization. It's about reimagining what's possible when technology handles complexity and marketers focus on strategy.
“Brands are telling us they want to spend less time on tactics and more time on strategy and business outcomes,” said Mark Eamer, Vice President of Global SMB and Partner Sales, Amazon Ads. “They will quickly embrace AI that removes friction and enables them to take an insight to action faster.”
Consider what used to take weeks: analyzing brand assets, developing creative concepts, setting up multi-channel campaigns, optimizing across touchpoints. Tools like Creative Agent now analyze products, features, and customer reviews to generate creative briefs and storyboards automatically.
Brands that embrace AI can respond to trends in real time, scale ideas across channels, and participate in premium formats without added complexity. The competitive advantage belongs to organizations that stop thinking in silos and start thinking about connected customer journeys where every touchpoint is measurable and optimized. AI isn't replacing strategic thinking—it's amplifying it by removing the friction between insight and action.
4. Delivering the next era of full-funnel for brands
Brands have always worked hard to connect campaign tactics across awareness, consideration, and conversion. But the complexity of setting up those campaigns across disconnected tools made it prohibitively time-consuming. That's changing.
Brands like Wuffes—who worked with 2025 Amazon Ads Partner Award winner Xnurta—are already seeing results from coordinated full-funnel strategies, combining Streaming TV, online video, and display advertising with an insights-driven approach.
Now, launching in Q1 2026, Full-Funnel Campaigns takes that approach further by letting advertisers set up complete awareness-to-conversion strategies using natural language, with AI assisting creative, audience strategies, and continuous optimization across formats. A campaign starts at the top of the funnel with premium streaming TV and audio, reinforces brand message with display and online video across Amazon and the open internet, and completes at the point of conversion with sponsored ads.
When streaming TV ads on Prime Video, display, and Sponsored Products share signals and automatically adjust based on performance, advertising starts working the way customer journeys actually happen—messy, non-linear, and cross-channel. Upper-funnel activities can be measured for their impact on conversion, not just reach and recall. Lower-funnel tactics can be evaluated for their contribution to brand building, not just immediate sales.
The brands moving fastest are no longer thinking in silos. They're thinking about connected customer journeys where every touchpoint is measurable and optimized.
5. Creator-led content is reshaping brand storytelling
The line between traditional media and creator content has blurred beyond recognition. For brands, this isn't just another channel to add to the mix—it's an entirely different approach to storytelling and audience connection. "The engine of creator-led content is the creator—they are the entrepreneur not only driving the content ideation, production—but also driving their business growth," said Matt Sandler, GM of Creator Services at Amazon.
The brands seeing success don't view creators as vendors executing predetermined briefs. Instead, they recognize creators as partners with unique audience relationships, authentic voices, and creative visions of their own. The opportunity lies in 360-degree collaborations spanning multiple formats and touchpoints—from social media to streaming content to live shopping experiences. The approach requires different skills than traditional advertising, but the rewards can be substantial—access to audiences that actively choose to engage with creator content and the ability to participate in cultural conversations in ways branded content alone cannot achieve.
6. Premium entertainment is the new playground for programmatic
The walls between premium entertainment and programmatic efficiency are falling. Through Amazon DSP, brands can now access Netflix, Disney, Spotify, and other premium audio and video streaming inventory with the same precision and control they've applied to display advertising. Meanwhile, Amazon has continued building a comprehensive sports portfolio that makes it a one-stop-shop for live sports advertising, from owned properties like Thursday Night Football to third-party providers like HBO Max, Disney/ESPN, and NBC Universal.
The transformation is visible in both scale and audience quality. Prime Video's sports inventory has exploded from just Thursday Night Football in 2022 to include NBA, NASCAR, WNBA, NWSL, and The Masters.
"Across all these sports we're seeing consistent audiences that are younger, incremental, and more engaged compared to linear audiences," said Danielle Carney, Director, US Video and Live Sports, Amazon Ads.
Tools like Live Event Optimizer are making what was once complex and fragmented—reaching audiences during overtime, managing frequency across games—into streamlined, self-service experiences available through Amazon DSP. This convergence of premium entertainment, programmatic capabilities, and holistic measurement isn't just changing how advertising is bought. It is redefining what premium means.
Looking ahead to what’s next for premium entertainment, Amazon Ads announced it will host its annual Upfront presentation on Monday, May 11, 2026, at 6:30 p.m. E.T. at the Beacon Theatre in New York City. The Amazon Upfront will highlight new ad tech capabilities from Amazon Ads, along with Amazon’s premium entertainment and live sports portfolio, featuring a lineup of talent across Prime Video, Prime Sports, Amazon MGM Studios, Twitch, Wondery, and Amazon Music.
