Future States & AI

Read the latest and most impactful research on future states and emerging technologies for innovating research methods here. All the research listed comes from the ARF or one of its subsidiaries: The Journal of Advertising Research (JAR), the Marketing Science Institute (MSI) or the Coalition for Innovative Media Measurement (CIMM). Feel free to bookmark this page, as it will be updated periodically.
Seeing Is Believing: How Generative AI Transforms Online Product Search

Seeing Is Believing: How Generative AI Transforms Online Product Search

  • ARF
  • MSI

This research demonstrates how integrating generative AI into product search systems can significantly enhance consumers’ ability to express preferences, leading to greater design satisfaction and higher purchase intentions. By using AI-generated design visualizations as interactive feedback, the authors bridge a long-standing gap between consumer intentions and search outputs, offering powerful implications for marketers, advertisers and retailers.

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Steering AI Bias: How Persona Prompts Unlock Nuance in Gen AI Responses

Steering AI Bias: How Persona Prompts Unlock Nuance in Gen AI Responses

  • Psychology of GenAI

Large language models mirror human cognitive biases—but can those biases be guided? New ARF and MSI research reveals that while loss aversion remains deeply ingrained in AI responses, introducing persona information, such as demographics or personality traits, can increase variability and make outputs more nuanced. For advertisers and researchers, this opens the door to design strategic prompts that spark richer and more nuanced, human-like responses.

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How AI and Privacy Regulations are Changing Media Planning Practices

How AI and Privacy Regulations are Changing Media Planning Practices

  • ARF; MSI; CIMM

The Advertising Research Foundation (ARF), in collaboration with CIMM and MSI, presents The Future of Media Planning in an AI-Powered, Data-Driven World. This report explores how AI, privacy-first strategies and outcome-based metrics are transforming the discipline of media planning. Designed for researchers and practitioners, the paper provides a roadmap for navigating audience fragmentation, evolving regulations and new measurement frontiers—while keeping business outcomes at the center of strategy.

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Testing AI’s Strategic IQ: Can Generative Models Think Like Top Executives?

Testing AI’s Strategic IQ: Can Generative Models Think Like Top Executives?

  • ARF ORIGINAL RESEARCH
  • ARF

The ARF tested whether generative AI can adopt executive personas and provide credible, role-specific strategies. This experiment highlights how AI performs when “thinking like” organizational leaders, its limitations in institutional logic and feasibility, and how human-in-the-loop feedback can refine outputs and create nuanced and worthwhile results.

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Too Much of a Good Thing? How Personalization in AI-Generated Ads Affects Consumer Attitudes

Too Much of a Good Thing? How Personalization in AI-Generated Ads Affects Consumer Attitudes

  • ARF
  • JOURNAL OF ADVERTISING RESEARCH

AI-generated advertising promises scalable personalization—but how much is too much? This study explores how different levels of personalization in AI-generated ads influence consumer attitudes. Through a series of experiments, the authors identify an inverted U-shaped effect: while moderate personalization enhances ad effectiveness, excessive tailoring can lead to consumer discomfort, triggering concerns about manipulation and privacy. The findings provide timely guidance for marketers navigating the trade-offs of hyper-personalized messaging in the age of generative AI.

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Discover the Current State of Attention Metrics in Today’s Marketplace

Discover the Current State of Attention Metrics in Today’s Marketplace

  • ARF
  • ARF

The ARF Attention Report explores the evolving role of attention metrics in advertising, examining their adoption, effectiveness and challenges across agencies and brand-side advertisers. The data is based on a survey measuring the array of metrics currently used by advertisers and agencies across various platforms and industries. As the advertising industry increasingly values consumer engagement beyond traditional reach-based metrics, attention metrics have gained prominence, though adoption and integration remain uneven. Key findings include that attention metrics are gaining traction, with 64% of agencies and 43% of advertisers reporting frequent or constant use. Engagement rates (58%) and time spent (55%) are the most widely used attention metrics due to their accessibility, while advanced methods like biometric response (16%) and neuro measures (13%) remain relatively niche.

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Dive Deep into Retail Media Networks: One of the Fastest Growing Channels in the US

Dive Deep into Retail Media Networks: One of the Fastest Growing Channels in the US

  • ARF
  • ARF

Retail Media Networks (RMNs) have emerged as one of the fastest-growing advertising channels in the U.S., transforming how brands reach and engage consumers. Leveraging first-party data, RMNs enable targeted, measurable campaigns across retailers’ ecosystems, opening a unique blend of performance-driven and brand-building opportunities. Learn about this emerging channel, including the commonalities and differences in how they are being used between advertisers and agencies, in this deep dive into RMNs.

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PG VS R: The Psychology of Prompted Thought

PG VS R: The Psychology of Prompted Thought

  • ARF; MSI
  • Psychology of GenAI

Can sanitized AI tools truly capture the nuance required for advertising and brand research? Is a less restrained one more likely to produce skewed results? This comparative deep dive, from ARF and MSI explores how two popular large language models—ChatGPT-4o and Grok 3—respond when prompted with complex topics. The findings highlight how content moderation affects not only tone and specificity, but the very boundaries of inquiry. For advertising researchers navigating sensitive brand perception topics, understanding these model tradeoffs is essential.

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Algorithmic Trade-Offs: How Regulating Recommendations Shapes E-Commerce Markets

Algorithmic Trade-Offs: How Regulating Recommendations Shapes E-Commerce Markets

  • ARF

What happens when governments regulate how platforms recommend products? A new study examining Amazon's compliance with the UK’s Competition and Markets Authority rule—banning the use of Prime eligibility to determine “Featured Offers”—finds both gains and trade-offs. While the regulation did reduce self-preferencing and boosted price competition, it also led to fewer consumer purchases and lower product ratings, especially in niche markets.

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