The news: User acquisition investment is surging across the global gaming market as AI-driven production leads to explosive ad content growth.
- In 2025, global gaming advertisers spent roughly $25 billion on user acquisition, half of which went to the US market alone, per AppsFlyer’s 2026 The State of Gaming for Marketers report.
- Content production from the top gaming spenders is up 25% to 30% YoY, while smaller advertisers are increasing output by up to 40% YoY to stay competitive.
What it means: AI-powered ad production is a key driver behind these rapid production gains. By lowering the cost and time needed to generate content, AI helps advertisers make and test ads at scale, per AppsFlyer. However, that dynamic is also flooding the market with content and making it harder to stand out.
Success in user acquisition could depend not on how much advertisers spend, but on how quickly they can test, deploy, and refresh creative.
AI’s role extends well beyond creative generation, with teams using it heavily for performance measurement. Almost half (45.4%) of AI queries from teams are about reporting and performance breakdowns, not ideation.
Implications for marketers: Gaming advertisers’ priorities in 2026 should include focusing on creating content at scale over single, high-stakes bets to break through saturation and using AI as an insights tool, not just a creative one, to speed analysis and campaign optimization efforts.
This content is part of EMARKETER’s subscription Briefings, where we pair daily updates with data and analysis from forecasts and research reports. Our Briefings prepare you to start your day informed, to provide critical insights in an important meeting, and to understand the context of what’s happening in your industry. Non-clients can click here to get a demo of our full platform and coverage.