For decades, search advertising has been built around links, rankings and clicks. But as large language models increasingly replace search boxes with synthesized answers, the ad industry is confronting a more basic question: How do you advertise in a world where there may be nothing to click on at all?
That question was at the center of a panel titled “How Media Ecosystems Are Redefining Investment” at ADWEEK House during CES 2026. Adam Gerhart, global chief client officer at WPP Media; David Campanelli, president of global investment at Horizon Media; and Megan Pagliuca, chief product officer at Omnicom Media Group North America, joined ADWEEK editor in chief Ryan Joe to discuss what advertising inside LLM-driven search experiences could look like by next year.
Asked to forecast how LLM advertising might take shape in 2027, panelists agreed on one thing: It’s coming, even if the details remain unsettled. As Campanelli put it, “There’s no doubt we’re going to start to see [ads] in AI search over the next year.”
The harder question, he added, is format: “What are they going to look like? Very hard to tell.”
Much of that uncertainty stems from how people are using LLMs today. Rather than behaving like traditional search engines, panelists said, these systems function more like assistants—or even influencers—offering recommendations and complete answers instead of lists of links.
“The reality is right now, the LLMs are acting more like influencers and assistants [than] the classic search engines,” Gerhart said. That shift broadens what advertising inside those environments could become, opening the door to formats ranging from commerce links to richer contextual placements or conversational prompts.
While the user experience may change, panelists suggested the underlying business mechanics could feel familiar. One possible model involves advertisers paying for top billing within a specific result, signaling that auction-style dynamics are likely to carry over, even as new formats emerge.
Taken together, the discussion offered an early picture of what ads in LLMs might look like: paid placements embedded directly within AI-generated answers; commerce links surfaced alongside recommendations; and prompts designed to guide next steps rather than send users elsewhere. In that world, advertising becomes less about banners or blue links, and more about influence inside the answer itself.
That shift also changes how brands should prepare. Discoverability in AI-driven environments won’t depend solely on owned websites or traditional search optimization. Instead, panelists said, success will hinge on whether content, from social posts to reviews, is “eligible” to be surfaced in AI responses, making visibility inside LLM outputs as important as classic SEO once was.
The specifics are still evolving, but the direction is clear. Ads in LLMs are coming—and the industry has little time to wait before acting.
