With AI becoming a common part of the creative process in advertising, brands and content makers assessing its effectiveness against non-AI content have a reason to cheer.
According to data from global advertising technology platform VDO.AI, on connected TV, AI-generated ads recorded a 92% video completion rate (VCR), slightly higher than the 90% seen for non-AI creatives. A similar trend appeared in online video, where AI-led ads achieved a 71% VCR compared to 70% for non-AI ads.
Industry executives say AI-guided creative assets can match the effectiveness of traditional human-made spots, provided the message is clear, the format fits and the audience targeting is on point.
Local at scale
Across regional markets, adoption is moving fastest where cultural and language diversity is highest. Historically, India's multi-language landscape created major production bottlenecks for national campaigns. Now, dynamic creative tools let agencies translate and adapt creative hooks, voiceovers and contextual details into regional languages at once.
“Advertising in India has evolved alongside changing consumer behaviour, and today that evolution is being shaped by data and AI. Across the advertising value chain, AI is helping advertisers derive audience insights, optimize media planning, personalize campaigns, and enhance measurement,” said Anil Goel, global chief technology officer at Nielsen.
As adoption grows, the focus is shifting from automation alone to improving relevance, transparency and decision-making, Goel added.
On the creative side, brands are using generative AI to produce multiple versions of ad copies, images and videos, significantly reducing production timelines and enabling rapid testing. In media, AI powers bidding strategies, audience segmentation, predictive targeting and budget allocation across platforms like Google, Meta and programmatic ecosystems.
Vishal Agrahari, vice-president, paid media at BC Web Wise, said AI is also helping brands localize campaigns into multiple Indian languages at scale, something that was previously time-consuming and expensive.
“A film shot once can ship across a dozen languages without a dozen recording sessions,” said Parminder Singh, co-founder at Redscope AI.
Uneven adoption
Language localization is one of AI’s biggest strengths in India, but adoption is uneven across industries.
According to Rajiv Dingra, founder and CEO, ReBid, digital-first businesses such as e-commerce, fintech, gaming and D2C brands have embraced AI much faster because they already operate on rapid experimentation cycles. More regulated sectors such as banking, insurance and healthcare are adopting AI more cautiously, with stronger human review processes.
Amita Madhvani, producer and co-owner of Equinox Films and Ram Madhvani Films, sees AI as an important part of advertising in India, but more as an enabler than a replacement for creativity.
“I believe AI is most valuable when it allows creators to spend less time on repetitive tasks and more time on storytelling,” Madhvani added.
Ads get smarter
One of the most interesting shifts is dynamic, context-aware advertising. Brands are tapping live data feeds to tweak ad visuals and text at the moment of delivery.
For instance, Hyundai paired live AQI data with custom messaging for the Creta EV on connected digital screens, making sure its sustainability pitch felt immediate and locally relevant, Preetesh Chouhan, co-founder and chief technology officer at Vibetheory.AI, pointed out.
But advertising has never been judged on a single metric. Completion rates or engagement can improve while trust or purchase intent falls if people feel the creative is not authentic.
“Consumers don’t consume advertising through the lens of technology. They respond to whether it’s relevant, well-timed and adds to the experience instead of interrupting it,” said Arjit Sachdeva, co-founder, VDO.AI.
Ruchira More, vice-president - analytics and performance marketing at Only Much Louder (OML), agreed the takeaway is that audiences care more about relevance than authorship. Consumers are becoming more and more comfortable with AI-generated content, but they’re also becoming better at recognizing when it doesn’t fit a brand.
Jobs in question
That said, many believe AI will replace more roles. Harshit Arora, founder and CEO, Growster, said graphic designers and copywriters are probably the first to feel that impact before the industry eventually finds a new balance. Every major technological shift has reshaped jobs, and AI won’t be any different.
“Writing numerous copies, editing images, executing simple graphic designs, making subtitles and editing videos are all jobs which have become automated in routine production,” said Dr. Kiran Sharma, professor and area chairperson in marketing and international business at the K. J. Somaiya Institute of Management.
Siddharth Kelkar, managing director of India/MENA and performance business – AnyMind Group, agreed AI fluency is quickly becoming a baseline skill, not a nice-to-have. The people who’ll do best going forward are those who pair real domain expertise with strong AI skills, rather than relying on either alone.
Celebrities face a slightly different challenge because their likeness, voice and personality are part of their professional value. As AI-generated content becomes more sophisticated, issues of permissions, licensing, ethics and digital identity become increasingly important, according to Pratish Mepani, founder and creative director, Starting Monday Design and Branding Co.
Regulation is finally arriving, with MeitY amending the IT Rules to cover synthetically generated information. Saket Dandotia, co-founder and CEO, Onetab.ai, pointed out that ASCI has followed with draft labelling guidelines for AI in advertising — specific consent needed to use a person’s likeness, and ASCI keeping the right to judge what an ad actually does regardless of what label is stuck on it.
“While brands see AI as a scaling tool whether through virtual personas or licensed digital twins, celebrities are increasingly treating their likeness as IP that needs the same legal protection as a trademark,” said Divyat Kanyal, founder, TALL Creative Studios.