North America Internet: Digital Postcard from Cannes ‘26: Advertising Enters the Agentic Era Amid a Relatively Healthy Ad Environment

Research evidence excerpt

North America Internet: Digital Postcard from Cannes ‘26: Advertising Enters the Agentic Era Amid a Relatively Healthy Ad Environment

update to its ‘This Year, Next Year’ series, whereby WPP is

projecting ~8.9% Y/Y global advertising growth in ‘26E (ex- US political) and

one of the key debate areas was the forecasts for Generative Search ad

revenue. WPP believes that Generative Search could generate $5 billion of ad

revenue this year and reach $100 billion of ad revenue by 2030, making GenAI

the fastest medium to reach $100 billion adv TAM sales. Implicit in the

forecast was that Google is likely to account for the majority of market share

in 2030. Many industry observers we spoke with agreed that GenAI would be

a large successful entrant into the ad market, but that the ramp may be a little

slower.

– 3) GEO: Building Relevance Across the Web as LLMs and Agent Adoption

Accelerations: As usage and monetization of LLMs grows, Generative Engine

Optimization (GEO) was a core topic across our conversations, particularly

when discussing brand building efforts and the impact MCP (Model Context

Protocol) and agents could have on usage across the Web. And while GEO

strategies are still being developed, most of our conversations with CMOs,

platforms, and brands highlighted the need to grow awareness across most

every platform. Specifically, this means building a brand presence on

platforms at scale, like Reddit (which, in our view, speaks to the likelihood

that both Google and OpenAI renew their distribution agreements with

Reddit as Reddit negotiates for greater visibility and invests in its Feed). In the

case of Agents impacting brand and app usage as MCP adoption emerges, we

highlight Uber’s always-on driver liquidity creates a structural advantage