nearly ten years ago, based on my belief that targeting was becoming the central force in advertising, I made two predictions that sounded unlikely at the time.

First, I predicted that Amazon would eventually become the third largest advertising platform in the world. Then, I predicted that Netflix would ultimately accept advertising despite repeatedly stating that it never would and could even pass broadcast networks. Data via Claude cowork supports the accuracy of my forecasts.

The logic was simple. The most valuable advertising platforms are those with the strongest signals about what is relevant to individual consumers.

–Google knows what people are curious about.

–Meta knows what people want to discuss, share, and engage with.

–So I thought, “”But Amazon knows what people want to buy which is at least as important”.

–Then I thought, “Netflix knows what people are entertained by and has it modeled in their recommender system which is ahead of broadcast TV capabilities”.

Over the past decade, those predictions have largely played out. Amazon has become #3, and Netflix has entered the advertising business with a growth trajectory that has it on pace to pass NBCU.

So what’s next?

By 2030, I believe the five biggest advertising platforms in order will be:

1. Google
2. Meta
3. Amazon
4. OpenAI
5. Netflix

Platform	Consumer Signal
Google	What am I curious about?
Meta	What do I want to share ideas about?
Amazon	What do I want to buy?
OpenAI	What decisions do I need help with?
Netflix	What do I want to be entertained by?

The new platform on the list is OpenAI.

The platform has over 70MM users who increasingly ask questions such as:

• What is the best TV for my family room?
• Where should I travel next year?
• Which investment option makes the most sense?

These are not information requests. They are decision requests.

While search gives links, AI gives answers. In that sense, AI may become the first major advertising platform built around decision support.

But there is an even bigger implication hiding underneath this forecast.

Historically, advertising options were deployed in what I would call primarily brand environments.

Television.

Radio.

Magazines.

So most advertising dollars were spent in environments designed to create awareness, memory, and emotional connection.

The future looks very different.

If Google, Amazon, and OpenAI become three of the largest advertising platforms, marketers will be spending 70% or more of their money in performance environments where consumers are:

• searching
• evaluating
• deciding
• shopping

In other words, the center of gravity of advertising will shift from brand environments in a predigital age toward performance environments in an AI age.

This creates a paradox: all of my research indicates that brand proclivity is as important as ever…so how do marketers build brands in a performance environment?

I think this is doable. The hardwired distinction between brand and performance marketing (channels and creatives) has to give way to classifying advertising by effects. What drove sales? What drove brand perception improvement?  I believe that it is entirely possible to drive up brand favorability, consideration, and attribute ratings via retail media and AI, especially if you realize that performance channel effectiveness leads to a chain of events within a shopper journey that takes them through brand messaging.

For measurement professionals, this creates an equally important challenge. If these platforms command a growing share of advertising budgets, marketers will need ways to measure conversions and brand preference inside environments that are either less well developed for measurement or who have chosen walled garden policies.

The future of advertising may very well be learning how to create brand effects inside performance environments and then how to measure if these efforts are working.