According to a research report released by Goldman Sachs, the advertising industry continued its robust growth trend in 2025, with leading companies and independent technology platforms delivering strong performance. However, given the high baseline set by the 2024 election and Olympic Games, combined with a slowing U.S. economy and tariff headwinds in 2025, the firm expects the broader market to enter a relatively modest year. The divergence between the outstanding results of core platforms and the challenging external environment has led the firm to propose a "three-layer funnel" attribution model—incorporating currency effects, inventory dynamics, and algorithmic efficiency—to reassess the industry's true endogenous growth drivers. Goldman Sachs' main viewpoints are as follows:

Review of the 2025 Advertising Industry: Despite macro headwinds, growth accelerated, driven by the three-layer funnel reshaping endogenous momentum. The report notes that the global digital advertising market grew 16.2% year-over-year in 2025, reaching $616.7 billion, accelerating even on top of the high base set in 2024. Giants such as Alphabet and Meta, along with independent platforms like AppLovin, all showed synchronized upward momentum. The firm attributes this stronger-than-expected acceleration to the combined effect of the three-layer funnel: 1) Favorable currency exchange rates contributed to apparent revenue recovery; 2) Increased short-form video penetration and the unlocking of streaming ad inventory released large-scale, high-quality supply; 3) At the micro level, AI deeply restructured core funnel stages such as "recall" and "precision ranking," effectively improving monetization efficiency and advertisers' return on ad spend.

Outlook for the 2026 Advertising Industry: Cyclical and technological forces align, with five core variables supporting sustained high growth. Looking ahead to 2026, the firm believes the overseas advertising industry's growth momentum is likely to continue. 1) Cyclical Recovery: 2026 is set to be a typical "sports and political" year, injecting strong momentum into the broader market. Unlike the base pressure seen in 2025, 2026 will feature major sporting events with high commercial value and key U.S. political elections. 2) Macro Afterglow: Favorable currency trends may continue to boost apparent revenue performance in the first half of 2026. Due to the lagged effect of the overall decline in the U.S. dollar index during 2025, major multinational ad platforms are expected to continue benefiting from currency tailwinds in the first half of 2026. 3) Product Dividends: The monetization benefits of short-form video continue to unfold, driving steady expansion of high-quality inventory. As short-form video content further penetrates global user engagement and algorithmic recommendations optimize distribution efficiency, leading platforms are expected to see continued growth in user time spent on short-form video. 4) Technological Deepening: Underlying AI recommendation models are entering a "dividend release phase," reshaping monetization funnels across the industry. While 2025 saw major players focus on foundational infrastructure upgrades, 2026 is expected to be a critical year for AI to drive the transition from "point breakthroughs" to "systematic realization of benefits." 5) Competitive Evolution: AI-native platforms are beginning to test monetization, expanding the market but unlikely to fundamentally alter the advantages of leading incumbents in the near term. Recent market attention has focused on the potential impact of AI-native companies, such as OpenAI, starting to monetize via advertising in 2026. At the micro-competitive level, the firm believes new AI entrants are unlikely to substantially change the competitive advantages of existing leaders in the short term. Core incumbents possess hard-to-replicate business infrastructure and differentiated scenario barriers. Additionally, the firm observes that AI-native platforms face "credibility challenges" during the early stages of commercialization. Given these monetization barriers, the firm expects ad budgets to remain relatively stable with leading incumbents in the medium term.

Risks mentioned include slower-than-expected development of AI businesses, geopolitical risks, and regulatory factors.