"Attention is shifting from the quality of creative to the quality of the idea"

Audience: loyalty, with a caveat

Young people show the greatest loyalty to AI content. A study by Magram MR and "Litres" showed that more than 80% of Russians under 24 positively perceive content created with AI. At the same time, half of respondents are willing to pay extra for content created by a human.

According to a survey by Hi-Tech Mail and "VK Reklama," users consider AI use justified when it is necessary to show a product in a hard-to-execute format or create a photorealistic image of it. Half of Russians believe that even in AI advertising, it should be clear whether the product in front of the viewer is real or generated.

VK figures

The standalone "Creative Studio" section launched in May. In the first month, 30 thousand advertisers visited it, two-thirds of them representatives of small and medium-sized businesses. AI tools are becoming an entry point into digital advertising for those who previously considered launching campaigns complex and expensive.

"VK Video" also remains a driver. Viewing on televisions is one of the fastest-growing formats: on average, viewers spend 213 minutes per day in front of the big screen on "VK Video." Average daily viewing time on TV by the end of the second quarter of 2026 grew by 67% compared to the same period in 2025.

What works in the era of clutter

In the era of visual noise, it's not the loudest who wins, Dobromilskaya believes. What works is consistency of communications and honesty with the audience. "Today, what works is what cannot simply be generated: a well-thought-out brand position, a recognizable signature, cultural context, partnerships and collaborations," she says.

Virtual influencers, in her assessment, will not put bloggers out of work: the value of real authors is built on genuine relationships with the audience, which is especially important in the categories of health, finance, and parenthood. AI characters have a future, but as an honestly labeled format with limited tasks.

Video advertising is moving from the category of a one-off expensive format to dynamic, testable, and personalized content. The logic of "one video — one campaign" is giving way to targeted delivery of multiple videos for a specific segment and platform. Demand is growing for integrations into long formats and original content: an example is Ozon's integration into the show "Byt' Dzhiganom i Oksanoy." The project gathered 198 million views and 43 million unique viewers, reaching first place in "VK Video" trends. Purchase intent on the marketplace reached 62% among loyal viewers, with the most noticeable effect in the "Home" and "Beauty" categories.

Commenting on the phenomenon of AI slop (estimated at 21 to 33% of recommended videos on YouTube being low-quality generated clips), Dobromilskaya noted that such content is created not for audience demand but for the mechanics of recommendation algorithms.

The economy of advertising, according to her, is being changed by formats that shorten the distance between attention and action: short formats, UGC content, shoppable solutions, and "live" scenarios featuring employees, customers, and business founders. "A polished image looks beautiful, but sales and real trust come from exactly this kind of content," she concluded.

Source: AdIndex