AI is redefining identity in advertising—not just enhancing how we recognize users, but transforming how we adapt, engage, and respect their preferences in real time.
From automating workflows to revolutionizing creative processes, AI is setting new standards across sectors.
In digital advertising, much of the excitement has centered around generative AI, automation and creative optimization. However, there is an equally transformative application that hasn’t been explored yet: identity and addressability.
By redefining how advertisers recognize and engage audiences, AI unlocks new possibilities for existing use cases and introduces new ones. As data-driven strategies evolve, AI brings intelligence, adaptability and speed to identity systems, transforming how brands understand and connect with audiences in real time.
Making Identity Smarter
AI solves some of identity’s most persistent challenges. Its core strength lies in processing massive datasets quickly and drawing insights faster than basic matching methods, even when signals are incomplete or inconsistent. This makes identity reconciliation more robust and less reliant on rigid rules.
Traditional deterministic methods, while effective in some cases, depend heavily on predefined logic and struggle to keep up with cross-channel complexity. AI-based technologies, on the other hand, can learn from behavior, recognize patterns based on fragmented signals and continuously adapt to changing environments, regulations and user behaviors.
This adaptability allows AI to build more dynamic, precise identity frameworks. It captures connections that would otherwise go unnoticed, opening the door to more flexible and scalable identity resolution that remains effective as consumer journeys grow more complex. By detecting nuanced patterns across disparate signals, AI enables a deeper understanding of user behavior, improving ad targeting, attribution and overall campaign performance.
The Power of Adaptability
AI-powered identity solutions are inherently adaptable, enabling advertisers to tailor their approach based on campaign objectives. For example, AI can refine identity resolution with strict, deterministic matching when precision is key, such as for delivering one-to-one personalized creative based on a known user’s preferences on behavior.
For broader awareness or reach-driven initiatives, it can apply probabilistic models that expand scale without impacting precision. This flexibility enables advertisers to fine-tune identity strategies according to available signals, goals and market dynamics.
Measurement is another critical area where AI can deliver significant improvements. According to Statista, users in North America and Western Europe had an average of 13.4 and 9.4 devices per capita in 2023. Swapping between devices makes it increasingly difficult for traditional attribution models to track journeys. But AI-powered identity solutions can apply advanced models to connect and weigh touchpoints in fragmented journeys to reveal which interactions truly influence outcomes, whether it’s a product search on mobile or an ad viewed on connected TV.
AI Agents and the Future of Identity Collaboration
Unlike current AI implementations that focus on pattern recognition and model refinement, agentic AI introduces a more autonomous, interactive layer that could change how identity solutions operate in real time.
Rather than replacing identity solutions, AI agents will act as intermediaries, ensuring that identity resolution remains dynamic and adaptable to real-time advertising needs.
AI-powered identity can help creators understand their audience, refining their content strategies. If an AI agent detects that a creator’s audience engages more with interactive content, it can suggest format changes, highlight trending topics or even automate the creation of personalized content snippets tailored to different audience segments. Ultimately, it can transform audience insights into monetization opportunities, making content more valuable to both advertisers and consumers.
Another potential application involves dynamically managing a user’s identity preferences across platforms, ensuring personalized recommendations and ad targeting align with evolving interests. A user’s assistant could selectively share relevant data with streaming services to improve content discovery without exposing unnecessary personal information.
AI agents could also play a pivotal role in managing privacy preferences with greater intelligence and flexibility. Instead of relying on static settings or interruptive prompts, an AI agent could interpret a user’s preferences and adapt consent signals in real time. It might grant consent for certain types of data sharing while withholding others based on the user’s context, past behavior or current intent. This gives users more control without requiring constant manual input and ensures identity systems operate with up-to-date and meaningful consent signals.
A New Chapter for Identity
The advertising industry has made impressive strides in evolving beyond outdated identity methods. But the full potential has yet to be fully realized. As it matures, AI promises to reshape identity from a set of static processes into an intelligent, real-time system that adapts and improves on its own.