The Digital Out-of-Home advertising landscape is undergoing a significant transformation, propelled by the integration of AI. Statista forecasts that global DOOH ad spend will reach $19.08 billion in 2025 and that, between 2025 and 2030, spend will increase at a CAGR of 6.79%, leading to a projected market volume of $26.49 billion by 2030.
Simultaneously, AI’s role in marketing has expanded rapidly, with global revenues from AI usage in marketing expected to reach $36 billion in 2024. After all the hype of the last couple of years, AI is beginning to have a real impact on virtually every aspect of marketing, from generative AI creating and refining ads, to intelligent AI bots crunching huge volumes of data to answer customer queries more effectively, to the new breed of AI agents who consumers will increasingly rely on to complete mundane tasks on their behalf, such as putting the weekly shopping list together, placing the order and arranging the delivery slot. Similarly, in the world of DOOH advertising, AI is ushering in a new era of precision and efficiency.
AI is shifting the paradigm for Programmatic DOOH (pDOOH) by transforming the way we approach media discovery. Advanced machine learning algorithms enable AI to process vast amounts of real-time data from multiple sources – including traffic patterns, weather conditions, social media activity, and even sentiment analysis – to identify potential audiences that might have otherwise remained untapped. This is enabling advertisers both to select the optimal placements for their advertisements, and to optimise the timing and content of the ads to take advantage of current conditions. To make the most of AI’s potential in DOOH advertising, advertisers should consider the following strategies:
1. Leverage AI for Enhanced Media Discovery: AI-driven tools can analyze vast datasets to classify DOOH screens based on location, audience demographics, and foot traffic patterns. This enables advertisers to select optimal placements that align with their target audience, finding them in the places they are most likely to be, reinforcing messaging delivered through other channels and enhancing overall campaign effectiveness.
2. Implement Real-Time Data Analysis: AI’s ability to process data in real-time and in huge quantities enables advertisers to adapt campaigns instantly in response to changing conditions, such as the weather, world events, or trending topics. For example, a grocery retailer could set a weather trigger for their DOOH advertising that switches the focus of the ads from hearty, warming food to barbeque ingredients, when the temperature passes a certain threshold. Or an electronics retailer in a given country could switch the emphasis of their DOOH advertising from washing machines to large-screen TVs within seconds of that country’s national soccer team reaching the World Cup Final. This type of agility ensures that advertising content remains relevant and engaging to the audience at all times.
3. Enhance Personalization and Engagement: By leveraging AI, advertisers can create
personalized content tailored to specific demographics or locations. Dynamic Creative Optimization (DCO) enables advertisers to create dozens, or even hundreds of variations of a core advertising creative to appeal to different audiences who might have the opportunity see it at different times of day — parents with pre-school-age children in the morning; office workers on their break at lunchtime; and young people heading out to bars and clubs in the evening, for example. This level of customization increases audience engagement and improves the likelihood of conversion, making campaigns more impactful and more effective.
Building trust in AI-driven advertising
As with any innovation, there are challenges to overcome. Transparency and trust remain at the forefront of any conversation surrounding AI and its role in advertising. While AI’s ability to identify and target audiences with extreme precision is groundbreaking, it is also essential that brands remain transparent with consumers about what data they are collecting and how it is being used. The conversation about privacy must be taken seriously, and marketers must ensure they are using AI in ethical and responsible ways. If consumers understand the value exchange involved in sharing data in return for being presented with more relevant advertising, they are much more likely to agree to it.
By adopting these AI-driven strategies, and remembering the privacy implications of AI, advertisers can significantly improve the precision, efficiency, and effectiveness of their DOOH campaigns, enabling them to stay ahead of the competition in a rapidly-evolving market.oviegoers why the theater remains the ultimate place to experience visual storytelling at its finest.”
(April 1, 2025). Gulab Patil – CEO, Lemma. Retrieved from https://www.digitalsignagetoday.com/blogs/ai-powered-media-discovery-the-future-of-smarter-dooh-advertising/