If 2025 was the year AI stole the headlines, 2026 will be the year the second-order effects start to show up in media plans, including in-app ad investments. AI chat interfaces are changing how people use the open web, early “agentic” standards are emerging, and entirely new content formats are coming out of APAC. Against that backdrop, one thing remains constant: people are still spending most of their time on mobile.
Here are four shifts Start.io is watching closely as we plan for the year ahead.
1. MCP and AdCP move deeper into the experimentation phase.
AI protocols are in their earliest innings. The Model Context Protocol (MCP) and the AdTech specific model, Ad Context Protocol (AdCP), both aim to give AI systems a common language for describing context and goals so that agents can reason about which impressions to buy and why. AdCP in particular is a metadata standard, not its own transaction layer or identity solution.
In 2026, these frameworks are unlikely to transform performance overnight. Instead, expect a year of experimentation as the industry tests integrations among buying tools, SSPs and AI agents; defines what “good enough” transparency signals look like; and figures out how much metadata is practical to pass at scale
The marketers who benefit most will be those who stay curious, insist on clear use cases, and work with partners who can explain when it makes sense to plug in (and when to wait).
2. Apps stay central while AI chat upends web display.
AI-powered search and chat interfaces are already reshaping the economics of the open web. Studies of Google’s AI Overviews and other AI search layers show a consistent pattern: impressions go up, but click-through rates fall as more queries are answered directly on the results page. For many publishers, that means fewer classic display impressions and less predictable monetization on the open web.
In-app environments tell a different story. Mobile apps already attract around a billion dollars a day in ad spend, a figure expected to grow to $1.5 billion per day by 2029, with especially strong growth in non-gaming, “functional” apps like shopping, entertainment, news, and utilities.
In practical terms, 2026 is likely to accelerate a trend that’s already underway: Advertisers will shift more budget into mobile apps, where attention is predictable and formats are purpose-built for the environment. People might ask AI for a weather recap, but they’re still opening their weather apps too. Acknowledging this divergence by treating web and app as fundamentally different surfaces will become table stakes within media plans.
3. Short dramas hint at the next content-commerce flywheel.
Another trend to watch in 2026 sits far from traditional Western feeds: the explosive growth of AI-powered “short dramas” in China and across APAC. What started as bite-sized vertical entertainment has become a serious business. China’s micro-drama market tripled in 2023 to RMB 37.4 billion (USD 5.2 billion) and is forecast to break RMB 100 billion (USD 14 billion) by 2027, with more than 660 million people consuming the format.
These series use six-second hooks and 60–90 second episodes, are often partially produced with AI, and are designed from the start to blend content and commerce. Studios are already localizing hits for Europe and North America, with some titles generating tens of millions of downloads and eight-figure revenue purely from mobile-native storytelling.
For U.S. marketers, the prediction isn’t that every brand will launch a short-drama app in 2026. It’s that this model previews where content-led performance marketing is headed: low-cost, high-velocity storytelling that travels across languages and platforms, anchored in shoppable outcomes. Keeping an eye on how this ecosystem evolves, and how brands plug into it, will offer an early look at the next generation of branded content.
4. Ad tech innovation accelerates faster than services can keep up.
Finally, expect the pace of product development in ad tech to speed up even more than it already has. Generative AI and better tooling are already shrinking the time it takes to ship new features and optimization models. Teams that once needed two or three quarters to test a new bidding strategy or audience product can now prototype, validate, and roll out updates much more quickly.
What won’t scale at the same rate is human-heavy services work. Manual campaign management, bespoke data pulls, and one-off measurement projects are still important, but they don’t benefit from the same automation tailwinds. The gap between what platforms can do and what service layers can operationalize will widen.
In that environment, advertisers and publishers will lean harder on technology partners whose platforms can encode best practices through curated marketplaces and AI-assisted audience building, rather than relying purely on extra headcount.
For Start.io, 2026 is shaping up as a year to double down on what has always driven durable performance: in-app reach, strong data, and thoughtful innovation. Protocols like MCP and AdCP, new content formats like short dramas, and the rise of AI chat will all play a role, but the core job remains the same: helping advertisers and publishers meet real people where they actually spend time, and turning that attention into outcomes.
