The headline number
IAB projects U.S. digital video ad spending — including CTV, online video, and social video — will surpass $80 billion in 2026, up 11% year over year. That figure covers all digital video, not CTV alone, and it’s worth keeping that distinction visible any time the number gets quoted.
The more useful number sits underneath it: digital video is expected to exceed 60% of total U.S. TV and video ad spend for the first time in 2026. Budgets have been trailing viewing time for years. This is the year IAB expects that gap to close on the spend side.
Why the timing lines up
Part of the tailwind is structural. IAB attributes some of the growth to major sports rights moving to streaming, which pulls live, appointment-viewing budgets into the same environments where on-demand and premium streaming inventory already lives. Sports have historically been one of the strongest arguments for holding linear budgets in place. When the rights themselves move, the argument moves with them.
Buyers are already testing what comes next
The same IAB outlook found that two in three digital-video buyers are live, testing, or planning agentic AI use in 2026 — 21% live, 20% testing, and 25% planning. That’s a fast adoption curve for a capability that barely had a name eighteen months ago, and it’s a signal that the operational side of buying digital video is changing about as quickly as the spend itself.
Why it matters for a media plan
A plan built around last year’s channel mix is built around last year’s budget gap. If digital video is closing that gap in 2026, the planning conversation shouldn’t be “should we test streaming” — it should be “how much of the linear budget should already have moved.”
The takeaway: Treat the 60% threshold as a planning signal, not a prediction to wait out. If you want help sizing what that shift should look like for a specific brief, get in touch.