21-05-2025
Meta Says ‘Just Trust Us' With AI Ads, Will Amazon Follow Suit?
The Google, Apple, Meta, Amazon, and Microsoft logos appear on a smartphone screen in this ... More illustration photo in Reno, United States, on December 30, 2024. (Photo by Jaque Silva/NurPhoto via Getty Images)
When Mark Zuckerberg recently described a future where advertisers would need "no creative, no targeting demographic, no measurement," it signaled an unapologetic shift toward fully autonomous advertising.
Now, brands and agencies are questioning whether Amazon will pursue a similar "trust me" approach with its rapidly growing retail media business. A close examination of Amazon's recent advertising developments reveals a more nuanced strategy that balances automation with advertiser control.
In an interview with Stratechery earlier this month, Mark Zuckerberg outlined his vision for Meta's advertising future:
This vision represents performance advertising's ultimate black box—an AI-driven system that eliminates traditional advertiser responsibilities and asks brands to simply trust the platform's ability to deliver results. It's a big bet on artificial intelligence that promises to redefine the relationship between advertisers and platforms.
Zuckerberg's vision isn't entirely without precedent. Google has been moving in a similar direction with its Performance Max (PMAX) campaigns since 2021. PMAX consolidated Google's vast advertising inventory across Search, Shopping, YouTube, Display, Discover, Gmail, and Maps into a single campaign type managed primarily by Google's algorithms.
The format has seen both success and resistance. Google reports over one million advertisers now use PMAX, with some third party research suggesting that it absorbed approximately 82% of Shopping ad spend by May 2024. However, that share has declined about six percentage points since then as some brands test other formats, suggesting growing resistance to the black box approach.
Unlike Zuckerberg's zero-input vision, PMAX still requires advertisers to provide a minimal creative kit (logo, images/video, headlines). Google has also recently added more transparency features after sustained industry pushback, including search-term insights, asset-level reporting, and channel-level reporting.
Amazon's advertising business generated over $46 billion in revenue in 2024, making it the third-largest digital advertising platform globally. As it continues to mature, industry experts are divided on whether Amazon will pursue a completely autonomous approach similar to Meta's vision.
Amazon has taken strides to legitimize Amazon Ads as a true, standalone business unit. One retail media agency leader serving enterprise brands who requested anonymity, says "I see Amazon Ads' Performance+ and Brand+ picking up solid momentum. These are the first iterations of Amazon's move towards less-control for advertisers."
The launch of these optimization engines, combined with Amazon's investment in generative AI tools for creative production, suggests a trajectory toward more automation. However, several factors unique to Amazon's ecosystem may prevent a complete shift to the black box model.
Kashif Zafar, CEO of ad-tech company Xnurta, sees Amazon pursuing a different path: "Amazon is steering towards more of a co-pilot model rather than a closed cockpit. What makes users feel more comfortable is transparency and basically a say into the ads approach instead of just a 'trust me' model that Zuckerberg is pushing."
Zafar counts some recent Amazon initiatives that support this co-pilot theory:
Katie McKee, an independent retail media consultant, identifies several structural reasons why Amazon might resist the full black box approach:
"Amazon, like Meta, is incredibly data-rich. So offering a done-for-you tool would be particularly efficient," McKee explains. "However, most of the useful data is on the Amazon retail side and due to regulations, can't be shared to its sister property at Amazon Ads. This cuts deeply into how efficient a tool they could build without regulations changing."
McKee also highlights a fundamental difference in the Amazon advertising ecosystem: "Product pages are the creative. Strip the hero image, bullets, and reviews out of an ad and conversion tanks. Amazon can compress the asset workflow, but it can't delete it."
This aligns with Zafar's assessment: "High-margin inventory needs storytelling. Amazon's push into Sponsored TV and Twitch isn't possible without brand-led narrative. That's where the CPMs (and margins) live."
Ross Walker, Director of Retail Media at ad agency Acadia, sees Amazon already moving in this direction with their Auto campaign functionality for search: "Drop in your product, no creative needed outside of the product image and title, and they do the rest," he says.
Walker believes the logic is straightforward: "If you remove ALL the barriers brands state as reasons they don't invest, they will invest more. If you cut out agency costs and creative costs, it leaves more for working media."
However, he cautions that marketers will always seek advantages: "Brands will still probably try and find ways to gain a strategic edge in advertising. Despite what Zuck [Mark Zuckerberg of Meta] says, everyone is out to gain an edge on their competitors. No system is immune to being gamed."
Perhaps the most controversial aspect of Zuckerberg's vision is the implication that Meta would be the sole arbiter of campaign success. This self-grading approach faces significant headwinds in retail media, where brands are increasingly demanding independent measurement.
"Retail media trust is fragile," notes Xnurta's Zafar. "Brands already accuse Amazon of grading its own homework. Removing levers, or the ability to audit with AMC would just set off alarms at every major holding company."
Scott Ohsman, VP of Digital Commerce at agency Quickfire agrees: 'I think this will take years before decision makers and P&L owners just set it and forget it with no measurements.'
While Meta charges ahead with its vision and Google continues refining Performance Max, Amazon finds itself in a uniquely advantageous position. As the third-largest ad platform globally, Amazon has the benefit of observing how things have shaken out with Google's PMAX before committing to its own path.
Amazon's advertiser base spans from enterprise brands spending millions monthly to small sellers investing just enough to improve their organic rankings. Some of these advertisers will readily adopt a black box approach if it delivers results, while others—particularly sophisticated agencies and brands with established marketing operations—will demand greater control and transparency.
This diversity of customer needs, combined with Amazon's ability to learn from its competitors' experiences, suggests a measured approach is most likely. Rather than forcing all advertisers into a single model, Amazon appears to be building a spectrum of solutions, from highly automated tools for those who want simplicity to granular controls for those who demand them.
The question isn't whether Amazon will embrace AI-driven advertising. It already has. The real question is whether it will preserve the transparency and control that increasingly define its competitive advantage against the black box futures its rivals envision.
