If you thought that more people watched Linear TV than Connected TV, you would have been correct for every year until last.

Surprised? Perhaps not - it consolidates the audience shift to CTV streaming that many have talked about... but few still know how to take advantage of it from an advertising perspective.

For brands, you don’t need us to tell you it represents a massive opportunity. But it’s not just because it’s where the audience is. Rather, it’s because CTV enables us to create ads that leverage data for richer storytelling, deeper personalization, and truly dynamic campaigns.

And if you want to know why AI Audio is the secret ingredient to making it all happen, keep reading.

CTV is reigning supreme

If it wasn’t enough that CTV now enjoys higher viewership than linear TV, there’s also a few key reasons why brands are turning their attention to the medium.

1. When viewers ‘go exclusive’ they choose CTV

Audiences rarely pick one medium and stick with it - but if they do, they are twice as likely to choose CTV (35%) over Linear (17%). Nevertheless, 86% of all viewers in Europe watch CTV as part of their mix, whether exclusively or with Linear.

2. CTV viewers are a more favourable age split

Linear TV is increasingly skewing older - in Europe, 77% of those who watch Linear exclusively are 50+ years old. Conversely, CTV represents a much more even demographic split: 54% are 18-49, and 46% are 50+. It isn’t just the medium associated with ‘the next generations’ - but one where the right targeting will leverage even better results with viewers aged 50+, too.

3. CTV is a highway to the ‘engager zone’

In terms of attentive seconds - i.e. when attention is solely on the ad - CTV leads all mediums, beating linear TV, but also YouTube and Social platforms like Instagram and TikTok. But attention alone doesn’t drive meaningful actions: engagement does, and as far as CTV is concerned, 71% of viewers are actively engaged (passively or actively listening to ads).

This cross-section of attention time and engagement creates the optimal circumstances for ad recall and action. Speaking of which…

4. CTV Ads drive immediate action

In ShowHeroes’ comprehensive study Why CTV Reigns Supreme In The Attention Economy,, we learned is that CTV is a catalyst for meaningful interactions from consumers:

• 43% of users searched for a product during or after seeing an ad

• ⅓ users visited an advertiser’s website

• 1 in 5 users actively bought a product after seeing a CTV ad.

So, we know that CTV audiences are more attentive - but as you know, action doesn’t naturally follow if someone’s paying attention. Brands earn engagement, and they do it with personalization.

Why does personalization work?

It’s rare to talk about ‘enjoying’ ads, but here’s something you should know: 67% of viewers prefer to see ads that are contextually relevant.

It’s probably not surprising to you that an advert that references something relevant to you - like a nearby mall or car dealership - is more interesting to you than a generic ad. 

At a surface level, we appreciate that something feels more tailored. But in fact, it leverages a deeper psychological response to pay attention when we hear something that matters to us. 

(Or as we like to say, ‘Audio is Instinctive’).

That being said, even if you have the best intentions to personalize ads to viewers based on location, time-of-day or their previous interactions through CTV, it’s not as if you can make personalized creative at the scale and complexity you need…

Except, you can – that’s where AI audio comes in.

AI Audio - the key to personalized CTV ads

As a rule of thumb, the more personalized the creative, the more it engages a viewer - and the harder it is to achieve at scale.

With CTV, we work within the confines of GDPR-compliant data about a viewer - such as where they are located. Fortunately, for many brands, that kind of data is all we need, and it takes very little to make an ad that triggers the attention of a viewer.

Let’s say you have a global master asset as an automotive brand. If you want to encourage a viewer to visit their local dealership, it’s as simple as adding a call-out to say ‘Visit your local dealer in Springfield’.

Of course, you want to do this across multiple markets, too. if you manage hundreds (or even dozens) of locations, producing all of those audio call-outs requires a significant effort. In fact, the slowness and cost can put brands off using audio in the first place.

But with AI-powered audio, the production process of these assets is fundamentally transformed. In a single workflow:

• Scripts for each call-out can be generated instantly or supplied from a data feed

• Broadcast-ready audio, with lifelike voices, studio-quality mastering, and music can be generated in minutes.

• Assets can be sent to the delivery environment automatically.

It’s a transformational shift in how we personalize creative. When the production cycle shifts from days and weeks to minutes and seconds, it completely turns the economics of audio production on its head: making CTV campaigns not just viable, but simple to execute.

▶️ Learn more about the creative paradigm shift with AI Audio.

What does AI audio mean for the future of CTV advertising?

Of course, it’s not just car dealerships that benefit from this reimagined workflow. Using GDPR-compliant data, we can:

• Create countdowns for sales at stores local to viewers

• Advertise local breakfast deals in the morning and delivery options at night

• Market travel deals available at your closest airport

Combined with the rich visuals and interactive elements inherent to CTV (like scannable QR codes or voice commands that integrate with smart assistants), it’s easy to see why those action-oriented call-outs become much more seamless for audiences to act on.

But that’s not even the most exciting thing that AI audio is unlocking for brands: it’s unblocking of the data-to-creative pipeline.

The speed at which we can now turn data into creative doesn’t just mean we can produce more personalized ads at scale at campaign kick-off. But we can effectively produce optimized versions of those call-outs mid-campaign. With AI audio, it becomes possible to A/B test different ads in the first flight, and roll-out the most successful versions by the second in a much shorter window.

In short, the difference between low-engagement, visual-only ads and rich, interactive ads that create action, brand affinity and usable data is AI Audio.

Ready to transform your CTV advertising strategy?

AI Audio is just one piece of the puzzle: one that feeds into CTV’s track-record for richer, more engaging ad experiences built around visual storytelling, user-first personalization, and interactivity.

But make no mistake: CTV is a premium, sound-on environment. We don’t just notice when audio isn’t there: we respond better when it is. And with workflows unlocked by AI, it’s even easier to create the contextually-relevant advertising that drives action.

So why not learn more about how AudioStack and ShowHeroes can enable your CTV advertising campaigns with AI-powered audio?

▶️ Visit ShowHeroes