• by Joe Mandese , 8 hours ago

The Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) this morning released revised estimates for U.S. ad-spending growth this year that is 2.3 percentage points higher than what a consensus of recognized ad industry forecasters compiled by MediaPost was projecting at year-end 2025.

The IAB's just-released forecast calls for total ad spending in the U.S. to rise 9.5% over 2025, which compares with MediaPost's year-end composite of 7.2% (see at bottom).

The IAB said its projections are derived from an email survey sent to 205 "U.S. buy-side ad decision-makers, primarily at brands and agencies" between November 24, 2025 and January 16, 2026.

Excluding the incremental spending effects of cyclical events like Olympics and elections, the IAB projects U.S. ad spending will rise between 7.1% and 7.8% this year.

Citing a "caveat" that a U.S. economic recession could disrupt its projection, the IAB also delineated the total U.S. spending growth for discrete digital and analogue media channels (below), calling for social media (+14.6%) and CTV (+13.8%) to have the greatest growth, while "traditional media" (-1.1%) and linear TV in particular (-1.7%) to be in negative territory.

Ad spending projections aside, the report also highlights survey findings on the impact AI -- and explicitly agentic media-buying tech -- is having on U.S. agencies and advertisers, with "five of the top six focus areas" in 2026 centering around AI, including two-thirds focusing "specifically on agentic AI for buying/campaign execution."