Affiliate Leaders’ editor speaks to WPP Media’s Kate Scott-Dawkins on how AI and the social media lawsuits could see adland go through creative destruction
Meta going on trial for knowingly creating its social media apps to be addictive is one of the biggest cases in recent years to hit the courts, and the outcome of this could send shockwaves across the tech and advertising industries.
The six-week trial started last week (18 August 2026) in Oakland, California, where a coalition of 29 US states have come together alleging the tech giant’s addictive platform design harms teenagers.
With so many cases, Meta was hitting the headlines almost on a weekly basis between May and June this year – so it was no surprise that when I was in Cannes, it was the subject of many conversations.
Kate Scott-Dawkins, global president of business intelligence at WPP Media, says these lawsuits are “interesting to watch for the mid to long-term perspective, because what’s in question there is the product design”.
This raises the question of “whether this could bring the cost structure of social media platforms more in line with traditional broadcasters”, she adds.
Traditional broadcasters and publishers have had requirements to meet when it comes to editorial and content moderation for a long time, “it’s more structured”.
Scott-Dawkins explains that many of the big tech companies like Meta have set up around section 230, part of the Communications Decency Act of 1996 in the US, which offers ‘federal immunity to providers and users of interactive computer services’.
It essentially means platforms like Facebook, Instagram and Reddit cannot be treated as the publisher or speaker of information that is provided by a user or third-party on its sites – they are not legally liable. It also protects these platforms for how they moderate content such as deleting what it considers harmful content or leaving material up.
The Europe Union (EU) has a similar legal framework, which is managed through the Digital Services Act (DSA). However, the EU model only offers conditional liability rather than blanket immunity. The main difference here is that platforms become liable the moment they are notified or become aware of any illegal or harmful content and could face a penalty if they fail to act.
In the UK, social media platforms have a legal duty to manage harmful and illegal content on their services through the Online Safety Act 2023.
The increased scrutiny of social media platforms is something advertisers should be watching carefully, Scott-Dawkins says, highlighting some of the figures in WPP Media’s latest This Year Next Year report.
Social media and other digital channels are predicted to grow by 18.8% in 2026 to $465.2bn, before decelerating to 8.4% in 2027.
The deceleration predicted for 2027 onwards reflects three converging trends: the first is time spent on social media platforms is expected to plateau or decline in some markets.
The second is age-related restrictions or bans taking effect in the UK, Australia, Canada, Greece, Indonesia, and Spain among others.
For advertisers, “the regulations and age restrictions are unlikely to have a large monetary effect this year”, says Scott-Dawkins, and that’s largely because many brands have been “very conscientious about targeting for some time now”.
But social media will still be one of the largest single marketing channels and contributor to overall growth, she adds. Scott-Dawkins, who is also the author of WPP’s forecast report, points towards the total share of social media, which is on track to reach 37.2% this year and AI is a key driver in sustaining that growth.
‘Creative destruction’ will be good for adland
Outside of social media, it was hard not to talk about AI with Scott-Dawkins. As she rightly puts it, given “the pace of change that we’re seeing with AI now and how frequently the labs and different companies are rolling out new products and offerings”, marketing strategies need to be more adaptive.
“Agentic marketing and bot-to-bot interactions between consumers and brands remain the primary direction of travel. There is an increasing use of technology, intelligence and biometrics alongside a lot of personalisation efforts,” she adds.
Generative search is becoming one of the fastest growing advertising channels with ad revenue projected to surpass $100bn per year globally by 2030.
“Traditional search got there in a little over 20 years,” she says. “Social media got there faster in roughly 14 years; retail media in sort of 10-12 years and we’re thinking generative search is going to hit $100bn in six or so years.”
What’s exciting about AI is the new opportunities it can bring. Scott-Dawks believes creative destruction – where new technologies and media formats render old business models, traditional ad channels and legacy marketing strategies obsolete – could be a “great thing for the advertising industry”.
“There are probably things we haven’t even considered, perhaps to do things like AR glasses or autonomous vehicles, new places where advertising might show up and maybe create new models, channels and formats,” she adds.
But what is key right now is this notion of “being authentic” and that’s the conversation that’s happening among brands right now.
“When there is so much ability for content to be generated for reviews, brands are now looking at how they can find an authentic voice,” she concludes, adding that is how to stand out in the age of AI slop.
