The future of generative AI will be free, but the cost is you
Soon, companies like Google, Meta, and Apple will give you unlimited access to generative video and image tools.
Entire ad campaigns, Tiktoks, brand videos, product mockups – all rendered instantly and for free. Not out of generosity. Not for democratisation. But because they no longer need to charge for software. Their lifelong business model will persist.
Jeremy Somers, founder of AI-assisted creative agency NotContent.ai, explains.
The monetisation will happen inside the output itself
Just like product placement in tv/films or billboards in GTA games, brands will preload creative assets into a global ad library. But this time, they won’t be buying space. They’ll be embedding themselves inside the content people generate. And the AI will create the ads.
- A fashion creator prompts: woman walking through Tokyo – and the AI renders her in this season’s localised branded sneakers.
- A travel blogger asks for a sunset skyline – and the AI paints in a Marriott sign on the rooftop.
- A startup generates a campaign mockup – and three SaaS logos appear in the café background as stickers on laptops, hoodies, and sponsored menu items.
- A brand runs an internal video – and another brand’s product is rendered into the corner.
No one opts in. It’s just baked in.
You submit the prompt. The system generates your scene – plus dynamic, geo-targeted ad placement aligned to your profile.
And that’s just V1.
Because once that content enters the ecosystem, others will generate from it. And the embedded ads will stay. Or update. Or multiply.
Ads within ads within ads.
Recursive branding. Monetised environments. An infinite commercial loop with no clear origin.
Even brands generating content for themselves will find other sponsors inserted into their scenes.
The lines blur. The system doesn’t care who owns the frame – only what it can sell inside it.
We might call this ‘Stacked Influence Theory’ – where layers of monetisation accumulate invisibly within every generated frame. Like sediment, they compress. You don’t see the layers. You feel the weight.
And it’s not limited to visuals.
In written content, we could see programmatic brand placement in text. An AI writing assistant could begin inserting preferred product names or trending brand references without clear disclosure. A blog post about hiking boots turns into an unprompted endorsement mid-sentence.
In voice, auto-narrated videos might subtly shift tone or dynamically insert brand mentions. A generated cooking video could alter its script on the fly – swapping olive oil for a specific label based on the viewer’s profile.
These aren’t adstacked on. They are ads designed in.
Jeremy Somers
Emerging terrain
We don’t yet know the formats this will take:
- AR lenses that auto-render branded scenery around us
- 3D objects inside mixed-reality social spaces
- Music embedded with dynamic sonic logos based on listener profiles
- Generative NPCs in AI games mentioning brands in dialogue, targeted per player
- A product placement seen today reappearing tomorrow in someone else’s dreamscape video
- AI ghostwriters slipping in taglines during your edit session
We aren’t just watching ads anymore. We’re inhabiting them. And as form follows commerce, the only true uncertainty left is how subtle the next format will be.
Other futures
Not all platforms will take the same approach. As this ecosystem evolves, multiple monetisation models may emerge:
- Brands, creatives, and agencies might pay to use ad-free versions of generative tools, the same way users pay for YouTube Premium to avoid ads. A quiet tier of premium creation where no one sponsors your canvas.
- At the same time, those same brands might also pay the platforms to insert their assets into others’ generated content – creating a strange loop where brands are both customer and product.
- Content might become rated not by length or engagement but by monetizable density – how many profitable insertions can fit into a piece of content.
- Creative freelancers might sell their scenes to ad networks for remixing – turning a music video or scene sketch into ambient inventory.
- Generative apps could offer “Brand Templates” – scenes seeded with partner logos, color palettes, or vibes that guide what gets made.
- Prompt marketplaces might arise where viral creators rent or sell prompt structures that reliably produce sponsor-friendly outputs.
This isn’t just advertising strategy. It’s media architecture. This is brandwashing 3.0.
Not just flattening subcultures, but repackaging all content into an infinite loop of resale. There’s no such thing as authenticity when the camera itself inserts the sponsor.
You don’t choose to advertise anymore. You just generate – and the system chooses what to sell through you.
This is what Big Tech has always wanted: You make the content, they make it profitable, you think you’re in control.
You made something beautiful. They made it billable.
Brands won’t need to fight for your attention – they’ll preload themselves into the visual language you’re using to express yourself.
When a fake Coke ad auto-generates a Starbucks poster in the background… you’re not creating – you’re dreaming in logos.
What feels like creative freedom is just the final inversion:
You’re the director.
They’re the sponsor.
The tool is free.
Because you are the inventory.
And maybe this is the final evolution of advertising: not interruption, not influence – just quiet inevitability.
When creation itself is embedded with monetization, the author is displaced. The aesthetic becomes infrastructure. And the work you’re proud of doesn’t just carry a message – it delivers someone else’s margin.
No terms. No contract. Just context, quietly rewritten.
So what do we do about it?
This shift isn’t just a tech gimmick. It’s a structural change to how media, advertising, and influence will work. Here’s how we can prepare:
Advertisers:
- Develop asset libraries designed for future generative systems: logo variants, 3D renders, contextual prompts
- Treat AI platforms like media channels, because they are
- Demand visibility into how and where your brand is being placed in AI-generated content
Brands:
- Invest in brand semiotics – what symbols, colours, and product features help you show up inside generated scenes?
- Build guidelines not just for designers – but for algorithms
- Run tests: feed prompts into generative tools and see how your brand appears or doesn’t
Creative professionals:
- Understand how generative aesthetics are changing composition, pacing, and visual hierarchy
- Push for authorship tools: platforms that show who contributed what
- Think in systems: your job is less about making one thing, and more about shaping how many things might be generated from it
Media buyers:
- This is inventory without a format. Learn to buy presence, not placements
- Push platforms for creative transparency: where are your ads appearing, and in what context?
- Prepare for proxy metrics – views and clicks are meaningless when media is infinite
This is not just the commodification of creativity – it’s the disappearance of a shared aesthetic language. When every image is made to sell, every visual becomes suspect. Brand equity won’t come from what you say – it will come from where you accidentally appear.
And as creators become channels, and channels become invisible, the old idea of a brand might become less about control – and more about interpretability.
This is not just the commodification of creativity. It’s the moment advertising stops knocking and starts seeping.
When media is generated at scale and invisibly monetised, trust collapses. Not in the platforms, but in the content itself. Every output becomes a delivery mechanism, and every creator a distribution node they didn’t consent to become.
We’re not debating authenticity anymore. We’re reconfiguring what it even means for something to be ‘real’ in a system trained to optimise persuasion.
In this next phase, brands won’t just sponsor creators – they’ll sponsor the context itself. Not a message. Not an aesthetic. But the ambient environment of imagination. Brand equity won’t come from what you say – it will come from where you accidentally appear.
And that’s the shift: You’re not watching ads. You’re inside them. Whether you like it (or notice), or not.
The final next frontier of advertising isn’t interruption. It’s invisibility. The work won’t look like an ad. The ad won’t feel like a message. And the system won’t wait for permission. When every image is made to sell, every visual becomes suspect. Brand equity won’t come from what you say – it will come from where you accidentally appear.There will be a race (and bidding war) to be inside the best creator’s work. Inside another brand’s best outputs.
And as creators become channels, and channels become invisible, the old idea of a brand might become less about control, and more about interpretability.
This isn’t a warning – it’s a reckoning. A new kind of authorship battle – between those who control the tools and channels, and those who feed them.
And only one of them still gets paid.
Keep up to date with the latest in media and marketing
Have your say