- Amazon Ads reveals key AI adoption trends among SMBs in India
- Study finds AI is helping Indian SMBs overcome barriers of cost and complexity in advertising
- 87% say AI-powered tools have enabled them to access advertising opportunities that previously felt out of reach, including streaming TV and other video formats
- 75% say AI-enabled advertising has supported business growth
BENGALURU | 07 SEPTEMBER 2026 | Amazon Ads today unveiled findings from a new study examining how AI is transforming advertising for small and medium businesses (SMBs) in India. The research conducted found that AI is helping businesses overcome traditional barriers of cost, complexity and limited resources, making sophisticated advertising more accessible than ever before. Nearly nine in ten (87%) SMBs say AI-powered advertising tools have enabled them to access advertising channels, audiences or formats that previously felt out of reach, including high-impact video formats such as streaming TV. Beyond expanding access, AI is also helping businesses grow, with 75% saying AI-enabled advertising has supported business growth. 68% say it has unlocked greater creativity in their advertising by virtue of simplified tools.
“We are seeing Indian SMBs approach advertising with a confidence we have not seen before. The share of Amazon advertisers using AI-powered tools in India has grown by 77% year over year with SMBs generating 62% more ad creatives with those tools in Q1 2026 over last year. Today, AI-powered tools are opening up channels like streaming TV that once felt reserved for big brands with big budgets. It is exciting to see SMBs writing their own growth stories and at Amazon Ads, we are focused on innovating on their behalf to offer self-service solutions built to help businesses of all sizes,” said Kapil Sharma, Director – Amazon Ads India.
Streaming TV is becoming a realistic option for SMBs
Three years ago, 56% considered streaming TV as a viable advertising channel. For those who found it out of reach, major barriers included cost (48%), high minimum spend requirements (39%), and complexity in planning or buying (36%). Today, SMBs increasingly recognise the benefits the channel can offer. Among those interested in TV or streaming TV advertising, 62% say it can help them reach new audiences, 59% say it can increase brand awareness and 48% say it can improve credibility.
AI is helping SMBs think beyond domestic campaigns and levels the playing field
This shift is not limited to streaming TV. Cross-border advertising has traditionally required resources many smaller businesses don’t have, from adapting creative for different languages and cultures to managing targeting and optimization across countries. AI-powered tools are helping reduce that friction. In India, 56% of respondents who said cross-border campaigns were inaccessible three years ago now say they are more accessible. For Indian businesses looking to expand globally, Amazon’s Seller Assistant now provides AI-powered expansion guidance, including product recommendations and market demand insights to help identify international growth opportunities, as well as support for country-specific compliance requirements.
This is translating into tangible business outcomes. By lowering the cost of experimentation and providing faster feedback on what’s working, AI is giving SMBs the confidence to pursue growth strategies, like expanding cross-border or launching new product lines. Three quarters (75%) say AI-enabled advertising activity or strategy has supported business growth, 59% say it has supported expansion into new countries and 58% say it has given them the ability to launch new product categories.
AI is unlocking new creative capabilities
Beyond access to new channels and the ability to expand globally, AI is also reshaping how SMBs approach creative development. 88% say they are likely to use AI to create advertising assets, while 85% say they are likely to use AI specifically to produce streaming ads. Further, 68% say AI has unlocked the ability to be generally more creative with advertising.
Beyond creative development, SMBs also see practical benefits across campaign delivery: 65% say AI enables faster optimisation, 62% say it helps them find customers more quickly to protect budget, and 55% say it enables them to compete with bigger brands that have bigger budgets.
Amazon Ads is continuing to invest in AI-powered tools that make advanced advertising simpler and more accessible for businesses of all sizes. By reducing complexity across creative development, campaign setup and optimisation, these innovations are helping SMBs adopt AI with greater ease and confidence, enabling them to spend less time on manual tasks and more time growing their business.
Human judgement remains central as AI adoption grows
AI is helping SMBs work smarter, and advertisers are seeing the strongest results when they combine AI-powered recommendations with their own strategic decision-making. Among those who use AI to support advertising, the most common final decision-maker is still the business owner (40%), followed by AI tools with human review (32%), and the marketing lead (19%). Only 2% report fully automated decisions with no human review—suggesting SMBs are adopting a human-led, AI-supported approach, using AI to move faster and improve execution while retaining human judgement where it matters most.
AI is set to play an ever-increasing role in the years ahead
Looking ahead, Indian SMBs expect AI to become a bigger part of how they reach their business goals through advertising, with 92% saying it will be important to their future competitiveness. Those businesses are already looking to AI for content generation (64%), strategic planning (58%) and competitor analysis (53%), suggesting its role will increasingly extend from execution into planning and decision-making. Taken together, the findings point to a more democratized advertising landscape, where AI is helping SMBs unlock creative capabilities and higher-impact channels while human judgement remains central to how those tools are applied.
“We used Amazon Ads AI tools which helped us turn a static product listing into a proper video ad in almost no time. What surprised us was the impact. When we leveraged this AI video for our Smart Streaming TV campaigns, 80% of the customers we reached were new to our brand and drove 3X more purchases when combined with Search Ads,” said Vishal Singh Sisodiya, Founder, Klosia, a popular women’s ethnic wear brand.
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