Five major trends reshaping advertising by 2030

Five distinct trends are fundamentally reshaping the advertising industry's trajectory toward 2030, according to WPP Media's latest research released on September 9, 2025. The comprehensive study surveyed more than 60 industry experts from April 1-30, 2025, revealing dramatic shifts in technological adoption, consumer priorities, and regulatory approaches that will define marketing strategies through the decade.

Trend 1: Artificial intelligence becomes the creative engine

The most significant trend transforming advertising involves AI's rapid evolution from experimental tool to primary creative force. According to WPP Media's research, 71.0% of experts now view AI-produced creative content as likely by 2030, with 29.0% rating it highly likely. This represents the largest positive shift from the 2020 baseline across any measured scenario.

The trend encompasses AI systems producing the majority of creative content including music, television, movies, and advertising materials. Industry implementations already demonstrate this trajectory. Meta's recent Cannes Lions announcements showcased automated video generation and creative optimization tools delivering measurable performance improvements, with Advantage+ sales campaigns boosting return on ad spend by an average of 22%.

Netflix Co-CEO Ted Sarandos highlighted during company earnings calls how AI democratizes expensive special effects like de-aging, enabling smaller budget productions to access sophisticated capabilities. ITV CEO Dame Carolyn McCall emphasized using generative AI to "facilitate the creation of cost-effective advertising content to those SMEs that really, really can't afford to do TV production ads."

"With no doubt our life in advertising content creation will look very different in only five short years. The rate of transformation in only two years since AI became accessible is astounding. Nothing will be the same across the entire advertising ecosystem in 2030," said Karen Nelson-Field of Amplified Intelligence.

Recent developments from Google's Think Week 2025 demonstrate AI's creative dominance through Asset Studio capabilities and automated content generation systems. The platform now enables advertisers to generate professional-grade creative content across multiple formats with minimal human intervention.

Human creativity will persist in strategic roles. "I think the majority of conception will be done by humans, perhaps with some AI provocation, but actual production will largely be done by AI," said News Corp's Norm Johnston. This suggests a shift toward human-AI collaboration rather than complete automation.

Trend 2: Biometric data standardization accelerates

The second major trend involves rapid standardization and commoditization of biometric data for advertising applications. According to the research, 82.3% of experts view biometric data becoming widely used to access, personalize and secure services as likely by 2030, with 43.5% considering it highly likely.

The trend reflects existing market momentum. Current implementations include facial recognition in banking applications, fingerprint authentication for mobile payments, and voice recognition systems in smart devices. Advertising applications will expand these capabilities for audience targeting and personalization.

"Users want security to be easy. Bio markers are unique, and faster to use than passwords, key cards, etc.," said Joshua Spanier, Google's VP of Marketing, according to the research.

However, regulatory challenges persist. Pat Crowley of Commonwealth Bank of Australia noted that "privacy will be a large blocker of use of biometrics in marketing. Consent will be mandatory." The European Commission's current consultation on AI transparency guidelines demonstrates complex regulatory requirements facing biometric categorization systems in advertising platforms.

Implementation barriers include standardization challenges across global markets and varying consumer acceptance levels. While convenience and security drive adoption, privacy concerns and regulatory restrictions will shape deployment strategies across different regions.

Trend 3: Sustainability priorities decline amid economic pressures

The third trend represents a dramatic reversal in environmental priorities within consumer decision-making. Previously, more than 70% of experts in 2020 viewed sustainability as important as price in consumer purchase decisions by 2030. Current research shows 74.2% now consider this scenario unlikely.

"This has been a nice-to-have and consumers under cost pressure are trading away from this," said Helen McRae of WPP Media. The shift reflects broader economic pressures including inflation, supply chain disruptions, and geopolitical tensions affecting consumer purchasing power.

Cultural realignment in major markets contributes to this trend. Political changes and economic uncertainty have shifted consumer priorities toward immediate value over long-term environmental considerations. Marketing teams have also grown wary of greenwashing accusations, particularly in European markets where regulatory scrutiny has intensified.

"I think we have seen regression not progression with sustainability aspects in the last year or two," said Professor Andrew Stephen of University of Oxford's Saïd Business School.

The trend suggests marketing strategies emphasizing environmental benefits may lose effectiveness compared to value-focused messaging. However, some experts noted potential regional variations, with climate-affected areas potentially maintaining stronger environmental priorities.

Trend 4: Virtual reality adoption expectations collapse

The fourth trend involves dramatically reduced confidence in virtual and augmented reality adoption. Sales of AR glasses, VR headsets and smart earbuds are overwhelmingly viewed as unlikely to outweigh smartphone and smartwatch sales by 2030. This scenario represented the only one where 0% of experts believed it was highly likely.

"Considering the slow mass adoption of VR headsets, it's unlikely they'll lead the market anytime soon. While smart earbuds and AR glasses have potential to become more mainstream, they still require substantial technological advancements," said Kirsten Hasler of IKEA.

The skepticism extends beyond hardware sales to usage patterns. According to the research, 62.9% of experts view people spending more time interacting with virtual worlds than the physical world as unlikely by 2030. This represents a significant departure from pandemic-era metaverse enthusiasm.

Technical limitations including device comfort, cost barriers, and limited compelling use cases beyond gaming and niche applications contribute to reduced expectations. The trend suggests marketing investments in virtual reality platforms may face longer adoption timelines than previously anticipated.

Trend 5: Privacy regulation fragmentation intensifies

The fifth trend involves increasing fragmentation of global privacy and identity regulations rather than convergence toward unified standards. According to the research, 75.8% of experts rate a single global approach to consumer privacy and identity as highly unlikely by 2030.

"Zero percent chance. The odds of the EU, the UK, the USA, China, India, and Africa setting global standards is remote. It's about as likely as an Alphabet, Meta, Apple, ByteDance consortium," said Dan Salmon of New Street Research.

Geopolitical tensions, differing cultural attitudes toward privacy, and varying technological capabilities across regions drive this fragmentation. The European Union's GDPR implementation, China's data localization requirements, and evolving US state-level privacy laws demonstrate divergent regulatory approaches.

This trend creates operational complexity for global marketing campaigns. Advertisers must navigate multiple regulatory frameworks simultaneously, potentially requiring different data collection, processing, and targeting strategies across markets.

Recent developments in platform-controlled inventory preferences reflect how regulatory fragmentation influences advertising technology architecture and revenue distribution across different markets.

Emerging automation patterns

Beyond these five primary trends, the research identifies growing automation in brand-consumer interactions. According to findings, 66.1% of experts view bot-to-bot communication between personal digital assistants and customer service systems as likely by 2030.

McKinsey's analysis of agentic AI systems supports this prediction, identifying autonomous planning and execution capabilities as the most significant emerging trend for marketing organizations. These systems represent a shift from passive AI tools to active collaborators managing entire campaign workflows.

"I think a meaningful portion of brand-to-consumer interaction will be bot-to-bot by 2030, but not most. It's 2025 and most consumers don't even know what we're talking about in this question," said Brian Cooley of Cooley Insights.

Timeline

• September 9, 2025: WPP Media releases updated Advertising in 2030 research identifying five major trends
• September 10, 2025: Google demonstrates AI creative dominance at Think Week 2025
• July 27, 2025: McKinsey identifies agentic AI as frontier technology reshaping marketing
• July 23, 2025: Dailymotion launches AI-powered conversational advertising
• June 17, 2025: Meta unveils comprehensive generative AI advertising tools
• June 10, 2025: WPP revises global advertising forecast reflecting trend impacts
• April 1-30, 2025: WPP Media conducts expert survey measuring trend confidence levels
• 2020-2021: Original trend baseline established through initial Advertising in 2030 research

Strategic implications

These five trends create interconnected implications for marketing strategy development. AI creative dominance enables cost reduction and personalization scaling while biometric standardization provides enhanced targeting capabilities. However, sustainability priority decline requires messaging strategy adjustments while VR adoption delays affect immersive marketing investments. Privacy fragmentation necessitates region-specific compliance approaches.

The convergence of these trends suggests advertising will become more automated, personalized, and technically complex while operating within increasingly fragmented regulatory environments. Organizations must balance technological adoption with consumer acceptance rates and regulatory compliance requirements across multiple markets simultaneously.

Summary

Who: WPP Media surveyed more than 60 industry experts across media, marketing, technology and publishing sectors to identify fundamental trends reshaping advertising through 2030.

What: Five major trends emerged: AI-driven creative production dominance, biometric data standardization acceleration, sustainability priority decline, virtual reality adoption skepticism, and global privacy regulation fragmentation.

When: Research conducted from April 1-30, 2025, measuring expert confidence changes since original 2020 baseline studies and revealing dramatic shifts in technological adoption expectations.

Where: Global trend analysis encompassing diverse regional perspectives while highlighting market-specific variations in regulatory approaches, consumer behavior patterns, and technological infrastructure development.

Why: Rapid technological advancement, changing economic pressures, regulatory fragmentation, and evolving consumer behavior patterns require strategic recalibration for marketing organizations navigating industry transformation through the decade.