Connected TV (CTV) is already mainstream in India. In 2025, it’s not just about reach—it’s evolving into a smarter, more engaging, and monetized ecosystem powered by AI, personalization, regional influence, and hybrid revenue models. Here’s what’s coming next—and how marketers can prepare.
If you’re still wondering what exactly CTV is and how it works, start with our foundational guide: What Is CTV Advertising? Discover How It Works [2025]
Trend #1: How AI Is Making Connected TV Advertising Smarter
Connected TV (CTV)—TVs that stream content through the internet, like YouTube, JioCinema, or SonyLIV—has become a favorite screen for today’s audiences. But for marketers, planning ads on CTV can be tricky. Which content should you show ads on? What’s the right budget split between CTV and mobile? How do you know if your TV ad actually worked?
That’s where Artificial Intelligence (AI) is stepping in to make life easier.
Why AI Matters in Media Planning and Buying
AI can analyze massive amounts of data across platforms—what people are watching, when they’re watching, and how they respond to ads. It performs complex calculations that would take a human team weeks to do, in a matter of seconds.
For example, The Trade Desk uses AI to scan 15 million ad slots per second, helping marketers bid on the most relevant impressions in real time. This ensures brands connect with the right audience at the right moment—without overspending.
Healthcare brands like Banner Health used AI attribution tools to understand which CTV ads led to real-world actions like appointment bookings. This allowed them to shift budgets quickly and reduce cost-per-conversion.
Predictive Analytics
Machine learning predicts which creatives and audience segments will work best—before campaign launch—saving time and boosting success.
In the world of CTV advertising, predictive analytics is like having a crystal ball. AI can forecast which platforms, time slots, or audience cohorts will bring the best results—before a single rupee is spent.
For instance, The Trade Desk’s KOA AI engine can identify patterns such as YouTube CTV users watching content between 7–10 PM, allowing marketers to concentrate budget during prime time for higher impact.
A strong example comes from Banner Health, which used predictive insights to optimize ad placement and creative choices early in their CTV campaign. They saw a reduction in wasted impressions and a jump in campaign ROI.
Even on the creative front, platforms like Omneky use AI to generate and test multiple ad versions, predicting in advance which ones will resonate with specific audiences—making creative decision-making smarter and faster.
Dynamic Creative Optimization
CTV ads may soon update in real time based on weather, time of day, or regional interests, without manual intervention.
This is the future of personalized TV advertising. AI can now adjust video ads dynamically depending on contextual triggers. Imagine a viewer in Mumbai seeing an ad that promotes a cool beverage during a hot afternoon, while someone in Bengaluru watches a monsoon-specific version of the same brand’s ad.
This technology—known as Dynamic Creative Optimization (DCO)—ensures that ads are always relevant and timely, improving viewer engagement and brand recall.
As more CTV platforms support DCO, marketers will be able to set rules like “show product A if it’s raining” or “highlight store locations only during store hours.” All of this happens automatically, without manual changes to the creative or media plan.
In Summary
AI is not just a buzzword in advertising—it’s a practical, time-saving tool that’s reshaping how brands plan, buy, and measure CTV campaigns. From predicting outcomes before launch, to optimizing creatives in real time, to tracking which TV ad leads to real-world results, AI is turning CTV into a channel that’s as measurable and agile as digital—but with the impact and storytelling power of television.
For marketers navigating this shift, understanding and adopting AI-powered tools isn’t just an upgrade—it’s a competitive advantage.
Trend #2: Signal-Based Ad Serving on Connected TV
Once a media plan is in place, AI doesn’t stop working. It actively helps deliver the right CTV ad to the right viewer at the right time by using multiple audience signals in real-time. Unlike traditional TV, where everyone sees the same ad, CTV, combined with AI, makes personalized ad delivery possible at scale.
These signals include:
- Viewing history: What the viewer has watched recently
- Time of day: Morning vs. evening behavior
- Device type: Smart TV vs. Fire TV Stick vs. gaming console
- Location and weather: Hyperlocal and contextual cues
- Demographics and interests: Age, gender, genre preferences
For instance, if a viewer frequently watches fitness content on YouTube via a Smart TV, AI can prioritize serving ads for health supplements or workout equipment during their evening viewing hours. If the same viewer opens a CTV app in the afternoon, they may be shown lighter, snackable content promotions or local offers.
YouTube on CTV, one of the most advanced examples, uses AI and machine learning to combine logged-in user data, search behavior, and watch history to deliver highly personalized ads—just like it does on mobile or desktop. But now, it’s happening on the largest screen in the home.
This approach ensures that CTV isn’t just another media channel—it becomes a precision marketing platform. Brands no longer need to blast the same message to everyone. Instead, they can tailor their storytelling based on audience behavior—without compromising on scale.
Trend #3: The Rise of Regional Content and Hyperlocal Advertising on CTV
One of the biggest shifts we’re seeing on Connected TV is the rapid growth of regional and hyperlocal content. As Indian audiences move to digital screens in living rooms, language and cultural familiarity are becoming key drivers of attention—and AI is making it easier for advertisers to keep up.
Regional Content: The Heartland Advantage
Platforms like ZEE5, JioHotstar, and SonyLIV are now offering dedicated channels in regional languages like Kannada, Tamil, Bengali, Marathi, and Bhojpuri. These are not just subtitles or dubbed versions—they’re full-fledged original shows and live sports streams made for local audiences.
This creates an opportunity for brands to move beyond “one-size-fits-all” messaging. With AI-powered insights, advertisers can now identify which regions are tuning into what, and customize ad campaigns accordingly.
Hyperlocal Storytelling: Culture-First Advertising
AI enables geo-targeted creative delivery, which means a viewer in Lucknow can see a festive ad for Chikankari kurtis in Hindi, while someone in Coimbatore gets a Pongal-themed ad in Tamil for a regional FMCG brand.
Brands are now using AI to include local festivals, customs, and dialects into their ad storytelling—making the message feel truly native. This boosts relevance and emotional engagement, especially in a country as diverse as India.
Key Takeaway: Relevance Matters—More Than Ever
CTV isn’t just about screen size anymore—it’s about cultural fit. Regional creatives with the right language, tone, and context consistently outperform generic ones. They don’t just get views—they get noticed, remembered, and acted upon.
In the era of AI + CTV, regional advertising isn’t just possible—it’s essential for brands that want to win across India’s many markets.
Related Reading: For a detailed breakdown of the personas behind India’s explosive CTV growth—50–60 million households and ₹2,300–₹2,500 crore in ad spend by mid-2025—see our deep-dive: Smart TV Buyers = CTV Viewers in India: What Advertisers Must Know
Trend #4: Hybrid Monetization Models: The New Revenue Playbook in CTV
As CTV viewership explodes across India and globally, platforms are evolving how they make money—and how they serve both users and advertisers. Gone are the days of choosing between AVOD (Advertising Video on Demand) and SVOD (Subscription Video on Demand). Today, most major platforms are embracing hybrid monetization models that combine both.
Beyond AVOD/SVOD: The Best of Both Worlds
Platforms like JioHotstar, SonyLIV, and ZEE5 now offer tiered content access—users can either watch for free with ads (AVOD) or pay a subscription fee for an ad-free experience (SVOD). This dual model expands reach dramatically: ad-supported content brings in high volumes of viewers, while subscriptions generate steady revenue from loyal users.
For example, during the IPL 2023, JioCinema offered free CTV streaming with ads, reaching over 550 million users, making it the largest AVOD sports streaming event in India’s history. Simultaneously, it also promoted premium content (movies, series) through a subscription tier.
This flexibility means brands can tap into massive audiences without waiting for users to pay—while platforms still benefit from both ad revenue and subscription earnings.
FAST Channels + Premium Ad Skins: TV Meets Tech
A growing part of this hybrid model is the rise of FAST (Free Ad-Supported Streaming TV) channels—linear-style content streams with ad breaks, like traditional TV, but streamed via the internet.
Samsung TV Plus, Tata Play Binge, and even Fire TV Channels now offer dozens of FAST channels—from news and music to niche interest-based programming in regional languages. These channels don’t require subscriptions, creating zero-friction access for users and high-visibility ad inventory for brands.
To further enrich this model, platforms also provide premium ad skins—interactive ad formats, branded overlays, or pause-screen ads that appear around content. These non-intrusive but high-impact placements are a new way for advertisers to stand out without disrupting the viewer experience.
Effect: Scale Meets Versatility
For viewers, hybrid models mean choice and control: watch for free with ads or pay for uninterrupted viewing. For brands, it offers a dual-method revenue stream—wide reach via AVOD and targeted, premium placements via paid tiers.
This versatility helps platforms monetize every type of user and allows advertisers to tailor strategies based on budget, targeting needs, and content environment.
In short, hybrid monetization isn’t just a pricing strategy—it’s a CTV ecosystem design that blends scale, personalization, and ROI.
To understand how CTV compares with traditional television in terms of targeting, ROI, and creative formats, check out our deep-dive piece: CTV vs Linear TV in India: Which Works Better for Brands?
Trend #5: Privacy, Transparency & Measurement: Building Trust in the CTV Ecosystem
As digital advertising faces growing scrutiny around data privacy, consumer trust, and ad fraud, Connected TV is emerging as a future-ready channel that balances performance with responsibility. AI is playing a central role in making CTV not only more effective—but also more ethical and transparent.
First-Party Data & the Phase-Out of Cookies
With third-party cookies disappearing from most browsers, marketers are increasingly turning to first-party data and privacy-safe identifiers. CTV has a natural advantage here. It doesn’t rely on cookies; instead, it uses household-level signals like:
- IP addresses
- Login data (e.g., Google, Jio, or OTT platform IDs)
- ACR (Automatic Content Recognition) technology to map viewing behavior
These methods are privacy-compliant by design and better suited to the living room setting. For example, Revx and Sivi.ai have reported that advertisers using CTV’s deterministic signals like IP and ACR are seeing improved match rates and campaign performance—without violating privacy laws.
Verified Campaign Delivery: Fighting Fraud & Boosting Trust
CTV ad fraud is a real risk—but AI-backed verification tools are rising to the challenge. Platforms like DoubleVerify, CTVSafe, and MOAT by Oracle are helping brands ensure that:
- Ads are actually seen (not skipped or blocked)
- Campaigns run in brand-safe environments
- There’s no invalid traffic or bot activity
These tools use machine learning and fingerprinting to validate where and how ads are delivered. According to DoubleVerify, the CTV fraud rate has dropped 60% YoY on campaigns that use third-party verification—compared to those that don’t.
In India, verification partners have started integrating with local CTV inventory providers, giving brands real-time dashboards to track viewability, completion rates, and geographic accuracy.
Benefit: Trust, Accuracy, and Accountability
For marketers, this evolution brings what digital advertising sorely lacked for years: confidence. With clean, verifiable data and transparent attribution models, AI helps advertisers know:
- Who saw the ad
- On what device and at what time
- What action it led to—like a website visit, app install, or store walk-in
Combined with first-party data strategies, CTV becomes a privacy-first, performance-friendly solution—ideal for a post-cookie world.
Trend #6: Consolidation & Ecosystem Growth: Toward a Unified CTV Advertising Future
As Connected TV continues to evolve, the next big shift is happening behind the scenes—infrastructure consolidation and platform integration. What once felt fragmented—OTT apps, FAST channels, ad exchanges, and measurement tools—are now coming together to offer streamlined, full-funnel advertising ecosystems. This means less chaos, more control, and better outcomes for marketers.
Platform Mergers: OTT Meets FAST Meets Adtech
We’re beginning to see the lines blur between content platforms (like OTT and FAST channels) and adtech providers. As competition heats up, strategic mergers and partnerships are paving the way for unified access to premium inventory and simplified media buying.
- For example, JioCinema’s integration with Viacom18 created a massive content plus adtech ecosystem that supports live sports, regional OTT, and AVOD monetization under one umbrella.
- Globally, Paramount+ and Pluto TV (a FAST channel) are jointly monetized using a combined tech stack—making it easier for advertisers to launch cross-platform campaigns without dealing with separate ad buying teams.
- India is beginning to follow suit. Platforms like Tata Play Binge are bundling CTV access across OTT apps with common login, pricing, and ad packages, hinting at deeper unification ahead.
Expect more inventory partnerships, data sharing agreements, and media-buying alliances between regional OTTs and global adtech firms in the near future.
Adtech Integration: One-Stop AI-Powered Campaign Stacks
Traditionally, running a video campaign across YouTube, SonyLIV, MX Player, and a FAST channel meant talking to multiple sales teams, using different tracking tools, and juggling creative specs. That’s changing fast.
The emergence of unified ad stacks powered by:
- RTB (Real-Time Bidding)
- AI-driven targeting
- Contextual + behavioral signals is allowing marketers to buy once and activate everywhere. For example:
- MiQ enables advertisers to run omnichannel CTV campaigns across OTT, FAST, and display with real-time analytics and audience mapping.
- Google DV360 and The Trade Desk are rolling out capabilities for CTV-specific buying with advanced frequency control, reach forecasting, and audience overlap reporting—all within a single dashboard.
In India, companies like ShemarooMe and Zee5 are integrating with programmatic SSPs to ensure their inventory is accessible via DSPs (Demand Side Platforms)—removing barriers to scale for brands with smaller media teams.
Outcome: Simpler, Smarter, Scalable
For marketers, the impact is clear:
- Fewer vendors to manage
- Consistent measurement and attribution across screens
- AI-led optimization that learns from cross-platform data
- Faster execution with lower overhead
As this ecosystem matures, expect CTV campaigns to feel less like assembling puzzle pieces and more like activating a full-service solution—powered by data, AI, and seamless access to audiences wherever they watch.
Trend #7: Cross-Screen Retargeting: Moving Indian Viewers Across Screens—and Down the Funnel
In India’s hyper-connected households, it’s common for users to stream content on the TV while simultaneously using their phone or tablet. This multi-device behavior is creating a powerful opportunity for brands to retarget viewers across screens—especially from CTV to mobile. Known as cross-screen orchestration, this approach ensures that your brand message doesn’t end when the TV turns off—it continues on the user’s mobile, app, or inbox.
Tablet + Mobile Orchestration: CTV Kickstarts, Mobile Closes
According to Revx.io, 63% of campaigns that combine CTV with mobile ads deliver significantly higher conversion rates than those running CTV alone. This is particularly relevant in India, where smartphone penetration is over 700 million, and mobile is often the first action device after a brand message is seen on TV.
Example: A user watches the trailer of a new ZEE5 Original on their Mi Smart TV. Later that day, they receive a personalized push notification or ad on their phone—reminding them to download the ZEE5 app or subscribe to the premium plan. This kind of CTV-initiated, mobile-closed loop boosts action without requiring the viewer to immediately act on the TV screen.
In India, brands across verticals—Myntra, Swiggy, and Groww—have experimented with YouTube CTV ads, followed by mobile video ads or app-install banners, timed during high-activity windows (e.g., evening relaxation hours). Platforms like Google DV360, Xapads, and Revx offer these sequencing strategies using device graph intelligence and household-level IP mapping—ensuring the same user is reached across TV and mobile, compliantly.
Omnichannel Journeys: From CTV to App to CRM
Cross-screen retargeting isn’t just about one click. It’s about moving viewers smoothly from awareness to engagement to conversion across a personalized path.
Indian CTV-to-CRM funnel example:
- A viewer sees a Mamaearth ad on their Samsung Smart TV via a FAST channel during evening primetime.
- They later get served a discount-led Instagram ad on mobile.
- Clicking it takes them to the Mamaearth app, which they install and sign up for.
- Within 24 hours, they receive a welcome email and WhatsApp message, nudging them to make their first purchase.
This funnel—CTV → mobile ad → app → CRM—has now become standard in digital-forward Indian companies. Performance platforms like Xapads and InMobi are helping brands build these omnichannel flows using real-time data syncing and retargeting pools.
Even political campaigns in India have adopted this model. During the 2024 elections, regional parties used CTV ads for candidate awareness, followed by mobile ad remarketing with voter pledge forms, ultimately feeding into CRM tools to mobilize volunteers.
Impact: More Touchpoints, Higher Conversions
In India’s fragmented but mobile-first media landscape, cross-screen retargeting delivers:
- Higher ad recall due to repetition across devices
- Lower drop-offs between awareness and action
- More personalized experiences, driving stronger loyalty
It transforms CTV from a high-reach branding channel into the first step of a measurable, performance-driven journey—keeping your brand top-of-mind and easy-to-act-upon across TVs, phones, and beyond.
Trend Roadmap for 2025+
| Trend | What it Means |
| AI-first Campaigns | Media buy, creative assets, and audience matching are automated |
| Personalized by Persona | Unique ad versions per household/context |
| Regional Domination | Ads localized in language, content, and culture |
| Mixed Monetization | AVOD + SVOD + FAST co-exist |
| Privacy Alignment | First-party targeting and fraud safeguards |
| Unified Adtech | One dashboard for cross-screen flow |
| Orchestrated Journeys | Multi-screen retention and performance loops |
Conclusion: The Future of Advertising Is on the Big Screen—Smarter, Sharper, and Seamlessly Connected
From AI-driven media planning and dynamic creative optimization to cross-screen retargeting and regional personalization, it’s clear that Connected TV is no longer just a branding tool—it’s a performance powerhouse. As audiences migrate to smart TVs and streaming platforms, CTV has become the bridge between storytelling and measurable business impact.
But navigating this evolving ecosystem—of platforms, ad formats, targeting options, and attribution tools—can be overwhelming. That’s where The Media Ant steps in.
We bring together CTV inventory across India’s top platforms—from YouTube and JioCinema to SonyLIV, ZEE5, and FAST channels—and combine it with data-backed planning, custom targeting, and end-to-end campaign execution. Whether you’re targeting metro millennials with premium content or reaching Bharat audiences in Bhojpuri and Tamil, our solutions are built to scale with your budget and your brand goals.
Why choose The Media Ant for CTV advertising?
- Access to pan-India CTV inventory across OTT and FAST platforms
- AI-powered media planning tools for targeted, efficient reach
- Regional and vernacular targeting with custom creatives
- Cross-device execution and retargeting (CTV to mobile/app/CRM)
- Transparent reporting with verified delivery and performance metrics
CTV is evolving fast—and so are consumer habits. Don’t let your brand be stuck in linear. Let us help you ride the next wave of video advertising, with CTV at the center of your omnichannel strategy.
Talk to The Media Ant today to plan your next Connected TV campaign.
