Response from OpenAI’s ChatGPT:
Within advertising, bots are already playing two very different roles—one beneficial and one problematic—and both trajectories are likely to intensify over the next five years.
On the positive side, “agentic” bots are becoming integral to campaign management. Today, advertisers use AI-powered systems to generate creative assets, test variations of ads, and optimise bidding strategies in real time. As models improve, these bots will be able to ingest more first-party data (with consent), monitor multiple platforms simultaneously, and automatically tweak campaigns to maximise returns without human intervention. For small and mid-sized businesses in particular, autonomous ad-buying tools may democratise sophisticated strategies that were once reserved for major brands. Real-time predictive models could also help marketers choose the best moments to show an ad or to pause spending when engagement drops.
At the same time, malicious or unwanted bots will likely persist and evolve. Automated click-farms and fake traffic bots currently siphon billions from online ad budgets; industry groups have been developing detection techniques, but adversaries adapt quickly. Web-scraping bots that harvest brand creative for copycat ads or train AI models on advertisers’ content may also proliferate. To combat this, advertisers and publishers are expected to invest heavily in verification services that use machine learning to spot non-human traffic, and they may adopt obfuscation techniques such as data “poisoning” to deter unauthorised scraping.
Regulatory and platform changes will shape these trends. Data-privacy rules could limit the extent to which bots personalise ads based on user behaviour, while laws targeting AI transparency might require clear disclosure when content or offers are generated or delivered by automated systems. Meanwhile, major advertising platforms—including search engines and social networks—are already bundling AI-driven ad formats, and five years from now these offerings will likely be the default option for campaign creation and optimisation.
Overall, bots will become more ingrained in legitimate advertising workflows while continuing to pose challenges around fraud, fairness, and governance. The balance between harnessing automation and guarding against abuse will be