AI ad spend by FY27: a forecast, not a finding
One practitioner expects AI to control 65 to 75 per cent of digital media spend by FY27. Another named in the same piece puts FY27 at 50 to 70 per cent. Neither number comes from a published report, and the only report-sourced figures measure something else.
- The 65 to 75 per cent figure for FY27 is Ajay Varma's forecast as Managing Partner at 0101.Today, not a finding from any published report.
- Pankaj Srivastava, whose affiliation the article does not state, puts the present AI-influenced share at 40 to 60 per cent and FY27 at 50 to 70 per cent.
- Both practitioners are describing large, digitally mature brands, so neither range transfers to a small or mid-sized Indian advertiser.
- Varma's own split of the AI-enabled pool puts media at 45 per cent and creative generation at 15 per cent, inverting where most brand AI conversations start.
The 75 per cent figure moving around this week is one practitioner’s forecast, not a research finding. Ajay Varma, Managing Partner at 0101.Today, expects 65 to 75 per cent of digital media spend to be substantially AI-controlled or AI-optimised by FY27. The article does not attribute that number to any published report.
A second practitioner in the same piece lands somewhere else. Pankaj Srivastava, whose affiliation is not stated in the material, estimates 40 to 60 per cent of digital advertising expenditure at a large, digitally mature brand is now materially influenced by AI, and projects 50 to 70 per cent for large, digitally mature advertisers by FY27. Varma’s read on the present is 35 to 40 per cent. On today’s position the two estimates overlap only at 40. On FY27, Varma says 65 to 75 per cent and Srivastava says 50 to 70 per cent. The spread is the story. There is no consensus number here and no basis for averaging the two.
Both estimates carry the same qualifier, and it is easy to lose: they describe large, digitally mature brands. Neither range should be read across to a small or mid-sized Indian brand.
The only report-sourced numbers in the piece come from the dentsu-e4m Digital Advertising Report 2026, and they measure programmatic, which is not the same thing as AI-controlled. Programmatic spending in 2025 was Rs 30,081 crore, or 42 per cent of India’s digital media spend, projected to reach Rs 42,435 crore in 2027, or 43 per cent of digital spend. The programmatic share of digital is put at 42 per cent then 43 per cent, a far flatter trajectory than any of the AI forecasts, and it is the wrong yardstick for them anyway.
For a mid-sized brand the useful reading is not the forecast but the composition. Varma breaks the AI-enabled pool into media 45 per cent, audience targeting 25 per cent, creative generation 15 per cent, personalisation 10 per cent and measurement 5 per cent. Media buying holds 45 per cent of that pool and creative generation 15 per cent. That is close to the opposite of where most brand conversations about AI currently sit, which open with generated creative and rarely reach bid logic, audience construction or measurement. If you are choosing where an AI budget goes this year, that ranking is a better input than the headline percentage.
Zane’s analysis draws on original reporting by Storyboard18. Read the original report.