Indian small and midsized businesses are testing a lot more creative ideas, but they are not handing the final call to machines. New data from Amazon Ads shows that SMBs in India generated 62% more ad creatives using AI-powered tools in the first quarter of 2026 than a year earlier.
The same data indicates that the share of Amazon advertisers in India using AI-powered tools grew 77% year on year. What is changing, however, is not just adoption. It is the economics of creative experimentation.
Cheaper creative experiments
For a smaller advertiser, the price of testing has always shaped media choices. Creating multiple ad versions used to mean more production hours, more money and slower decisions. AI is lowering that barrier.
Amazon Ads says some SMEs that previously spent six to eight hours creating an ad copy now do it in about 30 minutes with AI tools. Separately, one brand cited in the data saw a 35% higher click-through rate from AI-generated video ads compared with its benchmark.
Human review is still the default
The findings from an Amazon Ads study show a clear centre of control. Only 2% of surveyed Indian SMBs said they had used AI to fully automate advertising decisions without human review.
- 40% said the business owner remained the final decision-maker
- 32% said AI tools were used with human review
- 88% are likely to use AI to create advertising assets
- 68% said AI has made them more creative with advertising
- 65% said AI enables faster campaign optimisation
- 87% said AI opened access to channels, audiences or formats that previously felt out of reach, including streaming TV
- 75% said AI-enabled advertising supported business growth
“Human decision making is still at the centre of everything,” said Kapil Sharma, director, Amazon Ads India.
The full-funnel shift
Sharma also described an “inverted funnel trap” that can affect performance-heavy advertisers: budgets keep targeting consumers who have already been reached, rather than expanding the pool of potential customers. AI tools, he argued, make it easier for smaller businesses to experiment beyond lower-funnel conversion and move into awareness and consideration work without the old production costs.
That also changes the value agencies provide. Instead of spending time on storyboarding, shooting, editing and rounds of approval, agencies can use AI to fast-track production and put more energy into testing what actually resonates.
For marketing teams, the signal is simple: the productivity gain should go into more experiments, not fewer reviews.
Source: ETBrandEquity.com
