Amazon Brings AI and Purchase Data to the 2026 Upfront

Amazon is heading into its 2026 Upfront presentation with a message that goes beyond streaming inventory. The company will meet buyers on Monday, May 11, at the Beacon Theatre in New York, and will make its case to buyers allocating streaming budgets for the second half of 2026.

In an interview with Adweek, Alan Moss, VP of Global Ad Sales at Amazon, previewed the company’s pitch and its shift in how it approaches the upfront market.

“The upfront conversation used to be, ‘What content can I buy?’ And today it’s, ‘How do I make my entire investment work together?’ Moss said. “The evolution of the upfront shows the impact streaming has had on how buyers plan and execute this year.”

Amazon’s Data Moat

Amazon is presenting itself as a large ad platform with scale across retail media, streaming TV, audio, display, and video. The company claims its authenticated graph covers 90% of U.S. households, and its properties reach more than 300 million average monthly ad-supported consumers across owned and third-party supply. For brands measuring lower-funnel performance, the combination of audience scale and purchase signal is the core argument.

The data stack expanded again this week. Four days before the Upfront presentation, Amazon Ads and LinkedIn launched LinkedIn CTV Ads on Amazon DSP, bringing LinkedIn’s first-party audience signals from more than one billion members to streaming TV inventory. This allows B2B advertisers to activate LinkedIn and Amazon audiences within the same campaign buy.

“Our approach with buyers combines premium content and digital signals with AI-driven solutions that optimize and deliver measurable outcomes that perform all year long,” Moss told AdWeek. “For example, we’re offering sponsorship packages to our most premium content and live sports properties and custom creative brand partnerships with authenticated Amazon audiences and measurement capabilities.”

Full-Funnel Campaigns and AI

Amazon’s Full-Funnel Campaigns product, launched in Q1 2026, lets advertisers configure cross-channel campaigns using natural language. AI-assisted creative, audience strategy, and continuous optimization run across streaming TV, audio, display, online video, and sponsored ads in a single buy.

Prime Video Insights, currently in beta, adds a measurement layer. Amazon says advertisers can pair first-party data with viewing behavior to see which genres, shows, or audience types drove sales.

Moss says buyers are gravitating to AI tools for both performance and simplicity. “They’re looking not only to drive business results for their brands but to make it easier. And AI is definitely providing those capabilities in multiple parts of the execution process, from how they plan campaigns, how they choose audiences, how you optimize during the campaign, and ultimately measure it.”

The bigger AI conversation at this year’s upfront is agentic shopping. “Agentic shopping is not just the new frontier. It’s happening now,” Moss said. “Amazon is uniquely positioned because we sit at the intersection of content, deterministic signals, and commerce. The brands that are going to win will be the ones that show up in the right moments with the right message as AI-driven shopping experiences evolve.”

Premium Content and Live Sports

Amazon is presenting a new scripted slate alongside its sports lineup. New programming includes The Greatest, a biographical series about Muhammad Ali; Off Campus, a drama about an elite college hockey team; and Judgment Day, a film starring Zach Efron and Will Ferrell. Live sports, including Thursday Night Football, NBA, WNBA, and NASCAR remain central to the pitch.

Prime Video Signature, Amazon’s most premium sponsorship tier, is a core part of its upfront packages. Unilever’s Liquid I.V. integration with The Summer I Turned Pretty is Moss’s example of the model: brands embedded in cultural moments rather than adjacent to them. “Brands are fighting for cultural relevance in a fragmented landscape. They want to be part of cultural moments,” Moss told AdWeek.

Amazon is also expanding interactive and AI-enabled ad formats and native formats that link content with relevant ads in real time, with Samsung TV Plus the first third-party streaming environment to support them.

The Upfront Frame

Moss is constructive on the market overall. According to him:

“The upfront market is strong this year. While there are always headwinds in our industry, we’re seeing positive signals that it’s going to be a healthy upfront season.”

What he sees shifting is the planning conversation itself, from content selection to integrated activation. “There’s a tangible shift from content-first decisions to a more integrated approach, where content, signals, and technology are developed and activated together,” Moss said. “The integration of premium content along with AI-driven capabilities is no longer an aspiration, it’s how buyers are planning and transacting.”

Q1 earnings confirmed the trajectory. Advertising revenue of $17.24 billion, growing 24%, with TTM revenue exceeding $70 billion, arrives at upfronts as the backdrop for every budget conversation. Amazon enters the room with momentum and a data story its streaming competitors cannot replicate.