Amazon Ads execs have lifted the lid on 2026, revealing the shifts that will reshape how brands advertise and grow…
These insights come from the top, with both Phil Christer (Managing Director Amazon Ads UK) and Kate McCagg (Global Head of Amazon Ads Brand Innovation Lab) outlining their expectations for the coming year to Channel X.
For brands, these insights point to a more connected, data-led and creatively rigorous future for Amazon Ads, with 3 key themes standing out:
- Creativity driven by audience insight.
- Streaming TV Ads success measured more by business outcome than traditional metrics.
- AI will redefine campaign optimisation behind the scenes.
Let’s dig a little deeper, and explore the moves your brand can take now.
The evolution of Amazon Ads
Amazon’s ad ecosystem continues to grow in complexity, but these expert predictions signal a move toward simplification with intent.
The opportunity for brands lies in preparing early; aligning your creative with audience signals, building measurement frameworks that go deeper than just ROAS and treating AI as an operational advantage.
But what key shifts are predicted?
Customer insight will drive creative (not just validate it)
“The ‘science’ of media and the ‘art’ of creativity are often considered separate things. But the most compelling campaigns I’m seeing are where audience signals actually inspire the creative process, not just validate it afterward.
The breakthrough moments happen when creative teams genuinely embrace customer insights because they see how it unlocks ideas they wouldn’t have discovered otherwise. When we only create from our own perspective, we’re designing for a limited audience, assuming they will like something because we do.”
Kate McCagg, Global Head of Brand Innovation Lab, Amazon
Kate goes on to say that, going forwards, it’s important to address real customer “passion points” and potential points of friction, staying grounded in what the customer is experiencing – this way, ads seem natural when they show up, rather than something “interruptive”.
Our Takeaway
Your creative and media planning must work closely together, building your ads from real customer behaviours rather than internal guesswork.
Streaming TV Ads (STV) are much more than reach alone
Phil Christer (MD of Amazon Ads UK) is predicting a “shift to outcome-led buying” for STV, with success measured by business outcomes like sales, sign-ups and revenue, rather than more traditional metrics like reach, frequency or favourability.
“This shift will mean streaming TV ads will compete for performance as well as brand budgets…”
Phil Christer, Managing Director Amazon Ads UK
Our Takeaway
If you’re investing in STV, you’ll need clearer business objectives, integration with your full-funnel strategy and measurement that links your exposure to commercial impact.
Learn why incrementality is key for 2026 – and how to get the data you need here
Hyper-contextual STV is set to redefine relevance
Advances in contextual targeting will allow advertisers to deliver scene-specific ads, reacting in real-time to what’s happening in the moment.
“This means that if you pause your favourite action film mid-way through a scene showing the hero chasing a villain across an exotic island, you’ll be served an ad offering flights to that location with real time prices and flight times specific to your local airport and carriers.”
Phil Christer, Managing Director Amazon Ads UK
Our Takeaway
This kind of contextual creative will call for more modular assets, stronger brand storytelling and a high level of readiness across your product ranges.
AI will optimise and highlight surface patterns humans might miss
The power of AI within Amazon Ads is set to have a much bigger “behind the scenes impact”, helping to pinpoint perfect audiences, improving the performance of your campaigns and optimising continuously to deliver outcomes you can measure.
More useful still, because these tools are able to quickly analyse and process the vast amounts of data that a campaign creates, AI can spot patterns far faster, making real-time recommendations that will help keep your campaigns on the right track throughout.
“This will make advanced analytics accessible to more marketers through natural language and enable them to conduct complex campaign analysis faster.”
Phil Christer, Managing Director Amazon Ads UK
Our Takeaway
AI has the power to have a hugely positive impact on your Amazon Ads performance, conducting analyses in a fraction of the time and helping your brand react with more agility than ever before – but think of it as an enabler rather than a shortcut. You still need to deploy sharp commercial judgement, refer to clear, north-star metrics and come up with strong creative to unlock the impact that will set your brand ahead of the rest.
What to do now
- When it comes to aligning your creative and audience insights, now’s the time to start pinning down the things your customers really care about, not what your internal team might prefer.
- Prepare to measure your success on a commercial outcome basis, shifting your focus beyond ROAS* to include sales, NTB, sign-ups and repeat behaviour.
- Start building modular creative for contextual and STV formats, delivering assets which can adapt to moment-specific placements and storytelling opportunities.
- Strengthen your brand’s AI readiness by cleaning your product data, refining your attribution frameworks and making sure your team knows how to interpret AI-driven insight.
- And if you haven’t already? It could be time to integrate STV into your full-funnel mix, treating it as a performance driver as well as a brand-building channel.
* Learn how AMC can bridge the incrementality gap for your brand here
The brands that win in 2026 will be the ones who can combine strategic clarity with creative discipline – and who are planning for performance across every touchpoint, not just the bottom of the funnel.
If you want to hit 2026 with more commercial clarity, rigour and vision than ever before, our award-winning Amazon Ads team is on hand to help – get in touch today to book a call.