In May, during an interview with Stratechery’s Ben Thompson, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg effectively declared war on the entire advertising industry by unveiling his vision to fully automate the ad creation process using AI. From automating ad targeting to generating limitless creative assets, this approach threatens to upend the entire advertising stack as we know it.
Now, just over a month later, it was reported this week that Meta aims to transform digital advertising by enabling brands to create and target ads entirely through AI by the end of 2026.
The new AI-powered tools will allow advertisers to simply submit a product image or business URL along with a budget. Meta’s AI will then autonomously generate complete ads—including images, videos, and text—and determine the optimal audience targeting. Additionally, the system will offer budget recommendations and decide whether Facebook or Instagram is the best platform for each campaign. This represents a significant leap from Meta’s current AI capabilities, which mainly assist in refining existing ads.
A critical concern is that Meta’s consolidation of these processes moves beyond automating individual tasks to controlling the entire ad supply chain. This is more than streamlining—it’s full-funnel ownership. Could this development sideline agencies entirely?
To explore these questions and the potential future landscape, Campaign Asia-Pacific gathered insights from industry leaders across APAC. We sought their perspectives on whether this shift represents the democratisation of advertising or the monopolisation of ad power by platform giants. How will this transformation reshape APAC’s diverse advertising ecosystem—especially for agencies striving to stay relevant and SMBs seeking growth opportunities?
Pip Bingemann
CEO and co-founder, Springboards
Let’s not kid ourselves: this isn’t democratisation, it’s centralisation. Meta’s AI might lower the barrier to entry, but it also tightens the grip. When one platform writes your ad, places it, and marks its own homework, we’re not simplifying, we are surrendering.
And let’s not forget, this is the same Meta that inflated its video metrics and misled advertisers. Do we really want to do the same to creativity inside the same walled garden?
The bigger problem, though, for a region like APAC, rich with cultural nuance, is that it risks reinforcing lazy stereotypes or flattening everything into algorithm-approved sameness. This is my biggest fear: a world where creativity is dictated by an AI ad algorithm that feeds its own social algorithm, creating an endless feedback loop of grey. We don’t need AI to replace people; we need tools built to amplify them.
Penny Langenfeld
Senior group director, integrated solutions, APAC, DoubleVerify
I don’t believe Meta’s AI tools will fully enable brands to bypass agencies. While AI can streamline ad creation and targeting, it still falls short in areas that require deep human insight like brand storytelling, nuanced audience understanding, and long-term strategic planning. These are core strengths agencies continue to bring to the table.
What’s compelling, however, is how this move could democratise access to digital advertising. For smaller agencies and businesses, Meta’s AI could lower the barrier to entry, enabling faster experimentation and iteration at scale. That agility can be a powerful asset, particularly for emerging brands looking to grow and stay relevant.
Rather than replacing agencies, AI should be seen as a levelling tool that helps both brands and agencies do more with less. The key will lie in how we choose to harness it.
Marie Conley
Executive strategy director, Australia, RGA
To be honest, I don’t think it’s the small agencies that have to worry. The networks have been making a play into this AI-automated-advertising space for a little while now. It was WPP, Publicis and Havas that saw a fall in their share price following Meta’s announcement, after all.
Looking at the whole advertising space, and what’s on offer when it comes to AI-driven, geo-targeted, hyper-personalised products, we can’t fail to mention Google’s AI mode. It’s pulling data from Gmail, Maps, YouTube, and search, just to name a few. Not an advertising product, but Google is an advertising giant, so we shouldn’t be waiting too long. There’s also OpenAI, already in with Reddit, and now with plans to start its own social network to rival Meta.
It’s a transformative time across the board, and taking an AI-optimistic stance, I think it’s an exciting time for the craft of brand design. Visual, verbal, behavioural magic. When brand discovery is in jeopardy, the breadcrumbs have to be more compelling. With search becoming more emotional, a brand’s response has to step up. With automated creative, the standard will rise, and I can’t wait to see the creative industry rise to the challenge.
Li Shan Lim
Principal media consultant, R3
A key concern is that as Meta consolidates more processes, it shifts beyond automating individual tasks to controlling the entire ad supply chain. This is not just streamlining—it’s full funnel ownership, a shift that could introduce profound trade-offs with lasting implications.
As automation rises, marketers risk losing visibility into targeting decisions, budget allocations, and the true strategic drivers of performance. While campaigns may seem effective, a lack of clear levers can lead to inefficient spending and optimisation skewed toward reach rather than meaningful impact.
The bigger challenge for APAC is safeguarding the health of its diverse media ecosystem. With vast differences in language, platforms, and media behaviours, the region is especially vulnerable to over-centralisation. If power is concentrated within a few dominant platforms, the landscape risks losing its richness and dynamism. What is needed is a balance of campaign transparency, independent verification tools, and the curiosity to explore beyond default settings.
To stay relevant, agencies must demonstrate the ability to navigate these emerging challenges and assert themselves as strategic leaders capable of driving long-term success for their clients.
For SMBs across APAC, this presents an opportunity to run personalised, performance-driven campaigns without the need for large teams or agency support. It lowers the barrier to entry, particularly in mobile-first markets with lean marketing operations. Given APAC’s fragmented platforms and diverse consumer journeys, Meta’s tools can automate ad creation and level the playing field. With faster, more cost-effective access to tailored campaigns, they have the potential to become a powerful catalyst for brand growth in emerging markets.
Bob Du
MD, Jellyfish Singapore
MD, Jellyfish Singapore
For small businesses looking to kickstart their advertising journey, this change will look to create a more accessible environment, and it does sound like a positive move to attract net-new self-service advertisers for Meta. The concern for larger agency groups will be whether their portfolio of scale clients will switch to this new operating model, but it will not be a surprise if they have been underserved and under-appreciated.
Any agency that has a significant share of ad spend or creative work on Meta platforms will likely be thinking about their place in this future and how value creation can be sustained.
If there is a huge reliance on execution-led revenue streams versus intelligence and orchestration revenue streams, there will be an impetus for strategic reorientation. To stay relevant, it is key to educate clients on the value that this change brings alongside the agency’s evolving role. As we await more announcements from the platform, I like to stay optimistic because we are an industry built on human ingenuity, and marketing effectiveness requires humans in the loop.
Sally Lawrence
Executive director, Enigma Media
We don’t see this particular advancement as a negative. In fact, the shift addresses a pressure we and our clients have felt for years, creative hasn’t been able to keep pace with the speed and scale of automated media buying. Meta’s AI tool will allow us to execute faster, test more and scale personalised creative like never before.
We shouldn’t see automation as the be all to end all. If every brand is using the same tool the challenge becomes the ability to stand out in an already saturated sea of sameness. This is where agencies play a critical role in making brands become unignorable, by shifting their focus upstream and helping clients navigate these tools without losing their voice, edge and distinctiveness.
At the end of the day, AI is only as good as what you feed it and the agencies that stay relevant are those that understand how to blend technology with human insight. Don’t resist change, evolve with it.
Ori Gold
Co-founder and CEO, Bench Media
Meta continues to lead the path from consumer discovery to action, and its new AI tools will likely reinforce that position. At the same time, as similar AI capabilities become available across other social and adtech platforms, media is becoming more commoditised, creating opportunities for others to gain market share.
For SMBs, it’s a win. They can now scale their creative more efficiently, with more personalised messaging and lower costs. But for mid-sized and enterprise brands, while they can benefit from greater experimentation and A/B testing, it’s not enough. AI-generated assets cannot replace the need for a distinctive brand platform, deep customer insight, and an experience that cuts through the noise. The risk is that it fuels short-term thinking at the expense of long-term brand building.
For agencies, this marks another shift. The role is evolving from execution partner to strategic, technical, and creative guide. The ability to connect creative thinking with platform expertise will be crucial in helping brands unlock the full potential of AI and these powerful tools.
Inna Weiner
AVP, product, AppsFlyer
With this move, Meta is reducing the dependency on traditional agency services. For brands, this promises efficiency, speed, and potentially lower costs, especially appealing to small and medium businesses (SMBs) that previously relied on agencies due to lack of expertise or resources.
For agencies, particularly smaller ones, the shift might be crucial. Their traditional intermediary role is at risk unless they reinvent themselves as AI enablers - where the competitive edge moves from execution to advisory and innovation.
For SMBs, this democratisation of AI levels the playing field. But it also introduces complexity: while tools are easier, strategic decision-making is not. That’s where platforms like AppsFlyer can shine by offering privacy-safe, data-driven agents that complement Meta’s automation, safeguarding brands from blind optimisation loops and empowering them with trusted, independent insights to drive smarter, more accountable growth. In this AI-first future, brands that own their data and insights will win.
Martin Bertilsson
Founder and CEO, Multipole.AI
AI powered ad creation and buying efficiencies will be available in all channels, not just the "walled gardens". The dramatically lowered costs of engineering we have seen with AI-powered coding tools is adding to this. What required very large investments in talent and hardware just a few years ago is now accessible to smaller actors, publishers and marketers alike. The time to do a fast follow can be weeks, not years.
Like all, as more basic tasks are automated, agencies pivot to higher value work. APAC has some of the most forward looking and inventive digital agencies and all I speak to are leaning into this change. For SMB's it is mostly an opportunity as they will have access to a level of quality in creative and targeting that previously was cost prohibitive for smaller companies. The most important piece for SMB's is not ad buying tools but visibility and relevance in a post blue link search world.
They need to get on top of concepts like zero-click-search, generative engine optimisation (GEO), Google's Agent-to-Agent (A2A) Protocol, the new Model Context Protocol (which standardises how applications provide context to LLMs), and Microsoft's NLWeb, which turns your website into an AI app. In the near future, if one doesn't show up in places like ChatGPT and Google's AIO/AI Mode, one will be invisible online.
Adam Krass
Chief analytics officer, Australia, IPG Mediabrands
Meta’s move towards AI-led personalisation at scale is a big step forward for performance efficiency, but there’s also a risk of guiding brands into a race to the mean, where sameness is scaled and nuance is lost. In APAC, a region defined by cultural diversity and entrepreneurial energy, the opportunity lies in taking a full funnel view, balancing automation with the need to generate and convert demand across every channel and screen.
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