Netflix to leverage gen-AI for immersive in-show advertising by 2026

Netflix is set to reinvent the advertising landscape by leveraging generative AI to integrate ads into its popular shows and films.

During Upfront 2025, Amy Reinhard, president of advertising at Netflix, announced the streaming giant’s plans to roll out the new AI-powered ad format by 2026 on its ad-supported subscription tier. The launch is expected to redefine how brands engage with target audiences within the streaming environment.

The new ad-tech will employ generative AI to seamlessly marry branded products with the aesthetics of Netflix’s popular titles such as Stranger Things, Bridgerton and Wednesday. In a nutshell, the product placement on the ad creatives will be more context-aware, visually blending with the show's look and feel. 

The new ad format will consist of two types: mid-roll ads that will appear during streaming, and pause ads that will appear whenever the user hits pause. Pause ads will feature interactive elements such as QR codes and clickable overlays. The objective of this initiative is to make advertising less intrusive and more immersive.

The immersive AI-generated ads will be a feature specific only to Netflix’s ad-supported tier called Basic with Ads. In the US, the Basic with Ads plan costs only $7.99 a month in comparison to the Basic plan without ads, which costs $17.99 for the same duration. 

Currently, this alternative economic plan is available in only 12 countries, including the USA, UK, Canada, Japan and South Korea, among others. India is not on this list yet.

According to Amy Reinhard, Netflix’s ad-supported tier boasts over 94 million active users every month across the globe. In the US alone, viewers spend an average of 41 hours streaming on its platform every month. “A dollar spent on Netflix is more valuable than a dollar spent anywhere else,” she added.

Netflix isn’t the only streaming giant aiming to employ ad-tech to attract advertisers. During Upfront 2025, YouTube also introduced ‘Peak Points’, an AI-driven ad-tech for optimising ad placement, suggesting a broader trend in the world of streaming.