WARC report: TikTok and the new creative advantage

Generative AI has allowed marketers to scale creative output at lightning speed, but quality hasn't kept pace. While 90% of marketers now use AI as a core creative tool and 88% report an increase in creative volume, only 45% see significant improvements in quality.¹ Compounding the issue, half of all media budgets are still spent on ads poorly suited for their platforms, proving that more content doesn't guarantee better engagement.

To break through the machine-made noise, the next creative advantage lies in marrying AI with real-time community signals. Drawing on insights from 400 global marketing leaders, a new report from WARC and TikTok explores how top brands use tools like Symphony Agent to build adaptive creative systems that translate platform insights directly into resonant, native video concepts.

"The gap opening up in AI-assisted creativity is not a technology gap; it is an intelligence gap," said Andy Yang, Global Head of Creative & Brand Ads at TikTok. "Most brands are briefing the most powerful creative tools ever built with the weakest possible inputs: static demographics, legacy assumptions, data that tells you who someone was, not what they care about right now."