EMARKETER’s Outlook on AI Search, Brand Safety and How to Compete Against the Triopoly at POSSIBLE 2025
Introduction
At POSSIBLE 2025 in Miami, industry leaders from across the marketing and advertising landscape gathered to explore what’s next. One standout session came from eMarketer, titled “Advertising Industry Myths Panel.”
The panel tackled three provocative questions head-on:
“Is search dead?”
“Can anyone succeed beyond the Big Three?”
“Is brand safety now out of marketers’ hands?”
Led by eMarketer CEO Matthias Braun and three expert analysts specializing in social media, retail media, and digital advertising, the session laid out a powerful case backed by real data. At its core was a simple but striking message:
Advertising isn’t collapsing—it’s maturing. And in a mature market, growth comes by taking share. Welcome to a zero-sum game.”
Before diving into the three myths, Braun began by reframing the current state of the industry: not through headlines of fear, but through data-driven indicators like digital ad spend, eCommerce growth, and time spent with media. The trends, he noted, all point to one truth:
This is not the end. It’s a transition.
Myth 1: “Search is Dead”
TOPIC: How GenAI is transforming, not replacing, search behavior
With the rise of GenAI, many in the ad world claim “search is dead.” But eMarketer’s panel pushed back, arguing that search is not only alive—it’s evolving. Search today is broader, more diverse, and still growing in both usage and ad revenue.
🔑 Key Points (data-driven)
・YouTube ranks 3rd in search usage, followed by Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok
・Google saw 30x more traffic than ChatGPT as of December 2023
・Search ad revenue has grown 5x between 2015 and 2025
・Consumers now use 5.2 platforms on average to perform searches
・ChatGPT is the only GenAI platform in the top 10 search platforms
The “search is dead” narrative stems from the growing popularity of GenAI tools like ChatGPT and Bing. While these tools are indeed gaining traction, Google remains dominant, and the market is still expanding. What’s truly changing is the diversification of search behavior: consumers now search across social media, retail sites, and AI tools—not just Google.
Rather than a death, we are witnessing the end of search centralization and the birth of a multi-touch, multi-platform ecosystem.
Myth 2: “Only the Biggest Players Will Succeed”
TOPIC: The Rise of Retail Media, Social Commerce, and the Creator Economy
The narrative that only the “triopoly” (Google, Meta, Amazon) can thrive in digital ads is being rewritten. At POSSIBLE 2025, analysts showed how retailers, social platforms, and influencer ecosystems are absorbing billions in new ad spend, opening up new competitive frontiers.
🔑 Key Points (data-driven)
・Amazon has begun offering sponsored listings to non-endemic advertisers
・Nearly $30B in new ad spend will shift to non-triopoly platforms from 2025–2027
・Retail media ad spend in the US is expected to hit $60B in 2025
・Amazon and Walmart show paid results for virtually every product search
・Smaller retail media networks are rapidly increasing paid ad coverage quarter over quarter
The session explored how platforms like TikTok and Pinterest are seeing fast growth, particularly in upper-funnel commerce activity. While social is strong at discovery, it still lacks the purchase intent signal found in retail search environments.
This is where retail media networks shine. Giants like Amazon and Walmart already monetize nearly every search. Meanwhile, smaller retailers like Albertsons are catching up, improving their site monetization and expanding ad inventory.
In short, the age of GAFA-only success is over. The next phase of digital advertising will be shaped by diversity, commerce intent, and data-rich ecosystems beyond the Big Three.
Myth 3: “Marketers Can No Longer Control Brand Safety”
TOPIC: Retail Media Is No Longer the Last Fortress
Retail media has long been considered the safest ad environment for brands. But at POSSIBLE 2025, experts revealed that as retailers expand off-site using their first-party data, marketers must rethink how they define and manage risk in a more open ecosystem.
🔑 Key Points (data-driven)
・~80% of retail media ad spend has historically been on owned sites
・By 2027, 25% will shift to off-site open web inventory
・On-site ads were viewed as the safest possible placements
・Retailers are now expected to understand and manage brand safety risks
・Changing SEO traffic patterns and Google referrals are reshaping monetization
The session explored the evolution of retail media from a tightly controlled, brand-safe channel to one expanding across the open web. As retailers begin buying off-site inventory using their data, they increasingly behave like media companies—but often without media-level expertise in risk management. This shift presents new challenges for brands. Advertisers must now:
Build their own risk frameworks for a more complex ad landscape
Let go of assumptions about “safe by default” environments
Vet retail partners not just for reach, but for brand safety protocols
Final Takeaway: From Industry Myths to First-Party Data Empowerment
The “Advertising Industry Myths Panel” at POSSIBLE 2025 debunked three core assumptions:
- Search isn’t dead—it’s fragmented across new touchpoints
- GAFA doesn’t own the future—retail, social, and creators are rising fast
- Brand safety isn’t gone—it’s evolving into a new model of risk control
This session made one thing clear:
Marketers are no longer in full control—but they are more empowered than ever to build their own frameworks for success.
And at the heart of this new marketing reality lies one constant:
First-party data.
In a world of disappearing cookies, platform shifts, and fragmented audiences, having a reliable, actionable, and well-structured data foundation is no longer a luxury—it’s a necessity.
At Ayudante, we’ve supported hundreds of organizations across Japan and North America with data collection, visualization, and integration, leveraging tools like Google Analytics and Tag Manager.
In this era of uncertainty, data isn’t just a reporting tool—it’s your competitive advantage.
And making it work starts with owning it.
