Learn how major marketing platforms like Google and Meta are integrating AI to change the way we advertise. Nick Handley and Aaron Dicks explain the profound shifts happening behind the scenes and how marketers need to adapt.
In this video, you’ll learn:
- Google’s AI Evolution: Discover new AI-driven features like AI Max for Search and Product Studio. See how these tools are moving beyond keywords to a more intent-based approach, allowing you to create personalised product imagery and more.
- Meta’s Advantage+: Get an inside look at how Meta’s new Advantage+ system uses AI to optimise creative assets for different audiences, sizes, and platforms.
- The Shift in Control: Understand why platforms are taking more control from marketers, and why this means your focus should shift from managing the tools to feeding them with high-quality data.
- The New Marketing Mindset: Learn why the most important role for marketers is becoming that of a data curator and strategist, ensuring the AI systems have the right inputs to deliver the best possible results.
Transcript
Nick Handley: Let’s jump into Google to start with. There are a few things there that are actually quite important and big changes. We’ve also had AI Max for search, which is probably the first time we’ve had a fully targeted AI solution for search ads. It’s becoming less keyword-based and is going to become more intent-based, especially with AI Overviews. It feels like a nice move forward. It feels a bit scary, but quite nice and something that people should be testing.
I think one of the bigger things that’s probably more important is looking at Product Studio. If anyone doesn’t know what Product Studio is, it’s the ability to change creative within the platform in Merchant Centre, instead of having to move elsewhere or have a creative studio. We’re seeing great success with it; we’re using it to change product imagery and to create different backgrounds. Obviously, Google is getting more personalised, so the ability to do that without having to bother clients or book out a whole studio space to do product imagery again is actually quite useful for us.
Aaron Dicks: We know Google have come out and said they’re an AI-first company, and we’re definitely seeing AI and machine learning being introduced across all of their platforms, aren’t we? In Google Analytics in particular, and also when we’re looking at the attribution data inside Google Ads, we’re definitely seeing a lot more machine learning as well. Now, some of that’s forced because of the attribution challenges we have, but I think we need to get more comfortable with using that synthetic, manufactured data for making our decisions. So, we’re definitely seeing that in all of the platforms outside the ads as well.
I guess let’s change gears a little bit. We’ve looked, I guess, quite a lot at Google. There are plenty of other ad platforms out there as well. What’s happening in Meta?
Nick Handley: Yeah, Meta is interesting. I think Advantage+ is one of the biggest things that we’re seeing improvements in with AI. We’re actually using it across the majority of our clients, and we’re getting pretty decent results. It still requires a lot of input, which is quite nice. It gives us the creative tools and freedom to be able to test different creative, but then allows Meta to manipulate that creative to fit different ad sizes and to fit different people’s intent as well. It’s a pretty cool product, and I feel like that’s the way we’re going.
One of the biggest challenges we’re going to have with Meta is that they want to remove even more control from us. It was announced earlier in 2025 that they want to change how advertising works and make it so somebody can enter a budget and provide creative, and then let AI do the rest. I actually think it takes away from what the platform is built for and why people like it. It allows hyper-personalisation with insanely good targeting, and taking that away from people is actually a big negative, in my opinion.
Aaron Dicks: I think that’s an important step, isn’t it, as well, to understand how marketers are having to exist within this AI-enabled ecosystem. It’s not necessarily now about what we’re doing inside the platform. It’s more about how we’re feeding the platforms. That one step prior, a kind of curatorship, almost. What you put in is becoming super important versus what you can actually do inside the platforms, because I think that is the control that we’re losing, isn’t it?
Nick Handley: 100%. It’s more like data guardianship and data curatorship over actually being on the tools all the time. It’s what we’re teaching our teams and telling people now, as clients, is that we need better quality data to put in, and we’ll get better quality outputs back out. This isn’t new; it’s been around for a while, but it’s been really sped up with the evolution of AI within ad platforms themselves.
