of the United Kingdom’s capitol city.
For the past five years, TikTok has used Advertising Week to immerse potential advertising partners in the experience. They used experiential activations, like the TikTok Made Me Buy It bodega, to prove why TikTok was the epicenter of entertainment and culture.
Now, in 2026, TikTok doesn’t need to validate its presence. It doesn’t have to explain why it matters in a sea of competing apps. A new economic impact report reveals that 85% of brand partners have sold out after promoting their ads on TikTok, and the platform has contributed to more than $81B in GDP for these businesses.
“This is the beauty behind our core message to advertisers this year: ‘Watch it, love it, want it,’” said Isobel Sita Lumsden, Global Head of Business Marketing for TikTok in a press briefing the morning Advertising Week started in Manhattan. “We are building and compounding that attention on the platform, where people are coming with that discovery and entertainment mindset, and able to convert that very effectively into action.”
TikTok is the #1 platform where marketers plan to increase ad spend in 2027, with 84% of marketers placing advertising on TikTok.
- Kantar, Media Reactions 2026
But that doesn’t mean TikTok is on an easy street, especially putting its framing in the context of how some of its key competitors are going to market. With a short-term ban and ownership change under its belt, the company now has to show how it's applying the vision that made the platform so invaluable for consumers to create meaningful solutions for advertisers, brands, and even creators. Based on a pre-Advertising Week briefing at TikTok’s offices in midtown NYC, the company is already making moves by doubling down on agentic innovations and messaging that zeros in on brand safety and security.
Lumsden framed it simply: “We’re bringing performance and creativity much closer together, and really able to generate much more tangible business outcomes—and we’re helping brands turn their creativity and culture into performance with even better tools enhanced by AI across the whole funnel.”
Commerce Media in the Middle
The epicenter of the new solutions is TikTok Ad Network (TTAN), which will allow US advertisers to extend their campaigns beyond the “four walls” of the app and into an ecosystem of nearly 400,000 apps worldwide, spanning 1 billion users across entertainment, news, and yes, commerce. TTAN integrates with TikTok Ads Manager, so advertisers can ensure every placement is brand-safe, aligned with the right audience, and uses the same optimized creative that allows them to “both deepen their connection with existing TikTok users and extend their reach to audiences beyond TikTok, representing 55 million worldwide users incrementally,” noted Neha Singla, Managing Director of Product and Client Solutions for North America.
TikTok is automating the broader ad workflow, from design to optimization. Smart+ Creative Selection aggregates various creative sources, including advertisers' own assets, Symphony's AI-generated creatives, and creator content, into one workflow. The end result is a more streamlined experience for advertisers to review, approve, and activate campaign creative based on their unique objectives.
Search Ads Campaign then harnesses Smart+ across keywords and creative. Coupled with more advanced bidding capabilities and search budget management, advertisers will be able to better capture diverse user intent. Similar power is being brought to TikTok Shop’s automated ad solution, GMV Max, which can now automate campaign creation and spend so it improves overall profitability, factoring in affiliate commissions, coupons, and referral fees.
TikTok’s Agentic Response
Connected to the ad network is a series of adjacent solutions that show TikTok’s answer to agentic commerce, which includes new offerings for both customers and brand advertisers, two demographics with very different needs but who are both looking to extract more value from the time and money they spend on social media, whether that be through better search and discovery, more resonant creative, or better reach.
“Our position is really that human creativity remains at the core of AI, and that we are building with safety, privacy, accountability, transparency, all at that very foundation,” Lumsden said. “We’re making it go faster, while still enabling advertisers to keep control over their brand and creative decisions.”
Agentic Leads
With Agentic Leads, more service-oriented and even B2B brands can capture, qualify, and convert high-intent prospects. The solution will be available through AI-guided conversations, Lead Agent in TikTok Direct Message, and even Lead Agent in advertiser-owned website lead forms.
Buy Direct
Buy Direct is the platform’s answer to one-click checkout. The branded buying experience is embedded into TikTok, which allows brands to build trust and credibility, while eliminating clicks away from the For You feed, which is a fruitful destination for entertainment, inspiration, and discovery.
Shopping Assistant
Shopping Assistant is a conversational AI agent that TikTok users can access at any time to ask questions, narrow product options, and validate final details. The assistant will be integrated into the entire app experience, so users can get product details, shipping timelines, sizing, and even inventory availability within one contextual conversation stream. It is now live for US users.
These new solutions are being built with key commerce platforms and payment providers, including Salesforce, Shopify, Shoplazza, and Stripe. In fact, David Kaufman, TikTok’s Global Head of Monetization Product Partnerships, spoke on the Advertising Week stage with Shopify’s Aaron Glazer on Monday to delve into how the platform is turning culture into commerce by embracing new standards like the Universal Commerce Protocol.
During the briefing, though, he broke the product vision down pretty simply. For many companies, building this tech is hard. “There’s a lot that we can do to bring AI to that journey, and that’s one of the things we’re really investing in: making that easier and more accessible for our advertisers.”
A New MCP Brings Autonomy to the FYP
The most powerful example of how TikTok is democratizing its platform is TikTok for Business Model Context Protocol (MCP), which will allow developers to build AI agents and tools on top of the TikTok Ads ecosystem so they can plan, launch, and manage advertising workflows more effectively. It’s now available as a connector via Claude, Kimi, Manus, Perplexity, Replit, Snowflake, Tencent WorkBuddy, and the IAB Tech Lab Agent Registry, which shows how TikTok is working alongside evolving industry standards.
“Since launch, we’ve actually seen a 200% increase in advertisers that are using our MCP, and they use it for everything from campaign activation, creative analysis, audience discovery, insights, and we've seen it save an incredible amount of time on driving optimal campaign performance,” Kaufman said. “It really helps advertisers get the most out of the platform with the least amount of effort.”
Post-briefing, Kaufman noted that the new MCP will allow advertisers to broaden the scope of their TikTok use cases and, hopefully, extract more value based on their goals, whether that be through audience targeting or inventory prioritization.
“The idea is you're bringing this into a workflow that the advertiser or the merchant is already familiar with,” Kaufman said. “We're trying to distribute the buying control and optimization flows out into the ecosystem to make it a little bit easier for everyone.”
Through these announcements and a week of associated thought leadership sessions during Advertising Week, TikTok is leading with a new narrative: that it’s not just where culture happens, it’s where it’s empowering brands to show up to support every stage of the marketing funnel.
“We've got performance solutions that are capturing intent, helping choose the right creative, and helping advertisers extend their campaigns well beyond the platform,” Lumsden said. “We have agentic solutions that are facilitating better shopping, lead gen, campaign execution, all while making it a lot more efficient. The common thread here is how we're really helping advertisers harness the cultural power on TikTok and turn that into their real business outcomes for their brand.”
For the past five years, TikTok has used Advertising Week to immerse potential advertising partners in the experience. They used experiential activations, like the TikTok Made Me Buy It bodega, to prove why TikTok was the epicenter of entertainment and culture.
Now, in 2026, TikTok doesn’t need to validate its presence. It doesn’t have to explain why it matters in a sea of competing apps. A new economic impact report reveals that 85% of brand partners have sold out after promoting their ads on TikTok, and the platform has contributed to more than $81B in GDP for these businesses.
“This is the beauty behind our core message to advertisers this year: ‘Watch it, love it, want it,’” said Isobel Sita Lumsden, Global Head of Business Marketing for TikTok in a press briefing the morning Advertising Week started in Manhattan. “We are building and compounding that attention on the platform, where people are coming with that discovery and entertainment mindset, and able to convert that very effectively into action.”
TikTok is the #1 platform where marketers plan to increase ad spend in 2027, with 84% of marketers placing advertising on TikTok.
- Kantar, Media Reactions 2026
But that doesn’t mean TikTok is on an easy street, especially putting its framing in the context of how some of its key competitors are going to market. With a short-term ban and ownership change under its belt, the company now has to show how it's applying the vision that made the platform so invaluable for consumers to create meaningful solutions for advertisers, brands, and even creators. Based on a pre-Advertising Week briefing at TikTok’s offices in midtown NYC, the company is already making moves by doubling down on agentic innovations and messaging that zeros in on brand safety and security.
Lumsden framed it simply: “We’re bringing performance and creativity much closer together, and really able to generate much more tangible business outcomes—and we’re helping brands turn their creativity and culture into performance with even better tools enhanced by AI across the whole funnel.”
Commerce Media in the Middle
The epicenter of the new solutions is TikTok Ad Network (TTAN), which will allow US advertisers to extend their campaigns beyond the “four walls” of the app and into an ecosystem of nearly 400,000 apps worldwide, spanning 1 billion users across entertainment, news, and yes, commerce. TTAN integrates with TikTok Ads Manager, so advertisers can ensure every placement is brand-safe, aligned with the right audience, and uses the same optimized creative that allows them to “both deepen their connection with existing TikTok users and extend their reach to audiences beyond TikTok, representing 55 million worldwide users incrementally,” noted Neha Singla, Managing Director of Product and Client Solutions for North America.
TikTok is automating the broader ad workflow, from design to optimization. Smart+ Creative Selection aggregates various creative sources, including advertisers' own assets, Symphony's AI-generated creatives, and creator content, into one workflow. The end result is a more streamlined experience for advertisers to review, approve, and activate campaign creative based on their unique objectives.
Search Ads Campaign then harnesses Smart+ across keywords and creative. Coupled with more advanced bidding capabilities and search budget management, advertisers will be able to better capture diverse user intent. Similar power is being brought to TikTok Shop’s automated ad solution, GMV Max, which can now automate campaign creation and spend so it improves overall profitability, factoring in affiliate commissions, coupons, and referral fees.
TikTok’s Agentic Response
Connected to the ad network is a series of adjacent solutions that show TikTok’s answer to agentic commerce, which includes new offerings for both customers and brand advertisers, two demographics with very different needs but who are both looking to extract more value from the time and money they spend on social media, whether that be through better search and discovery, more resonant creative, or better reach.
“Our position is really that human creativity remains at the core of AI, and that we are building with safety, privacy, accountability, transparency, all at that very foundation,” Lumsden said. “We’re making it go faster, while still enabling advertisers to keep control over their brand and creative decisions.”
Agentic Leads
With Agentic Leads, more service-oriented and even B2B brands can capture, qualify, and convert high-intent prospects. The solution will be available through AI-guided conversations, Lead Agent in TikTok Direct Message, and even Lead Agent in advertiser-owned website lead forms.
Buy Direct
Buy Direct is the platform’s answer to one-click checkout. The branded buying experience is embedded into TikTok, which allows brands to build trust and credibility, while eliminating clicks away from the For You feed, which is a fruitful destination for entertainment, inspiration, and discovery.
Shopping Assistant
Shopping Assistant is a conversational AI agent that TikTok users can access at any time to ask questions, narrow product options, and validate final details. The assistant will be integrated into the entire app experience, so users can get product details, shipping timelines, sizing, and even inventory availability within one contextual conversation stream. It is now live for US users.
These new solutions are being built with key commerce platforms and payment providers, including Salesforce, Shopify, Shoplazza, and Stripe. In fact, David Kaufman, TikTok’s Global Head of Monetization Product Partnerships, spoke on the Advertising Week stage with Shopify’s Aaron Glazer on Monday to delve into how the platform is turning culture into commerce by embracing new standards like the Universal Commerce Protocol.
During the briefing, though, he broke the product vision down pretty simply. For many companies, building this tech is hard. “There’s a lot that we can do to bring AI to that journey, and that’s one of the things we’re really investing in: making that easier and more accessible for our advertisers.”
A New MCP Brings Autonomy to the FYP
The most powerful example of how TikTok is democratizing its platform is TikTok for Business Model Context Protocol (MCP), which will allow developers to build AI agents and tools on top of the TikTok Ads ecosystem so they can plan, launch, and manage advertising workflows more effectively. It’s now available as a connector via Claude, Kimi, Manus, Perplexity, Replit, Snowflake, Tencent WorkBuddy, and the IAB Tech Lab Agent Registry, which shows how TikTok is working alongside evolving industry standards.
“Since launch, we’ve actually seen a 200% increase in advertisers that are using our MCP, and they use it for everything from campaign activation, creative analysis, audience discovery, insights, and we've seen it save an incredible amount of time on driving optimal campaign performance,” Kaufman said. “It really helps advertisers get the most out of the platform with the least amount of effort.”
Post-briefing, Kaufman noted that the new MCP will allow advertisers to broaden the scope of their TikTok use cases and, hopefully, extract more value based on their goals, whether that be through audience targeting or inventory prioritization.
“The idea is you're bringing this into a workflow that the advertiser or the merchant is already familiar with,” Kaufman said. “We're trying to distribute the buying control and optimization flows out into the ecosystem to make it a little bit easier for everyone.”
Through these announcements and a week of associated thought leadership sessions during Advertising Week, TikTok is leading with a new narrative: that it’s not just where culture happens, it’s where it’s empowering brands to show up to support every stage of the marketing funnel.
“We've got performance solutions that are capturing intent, helping choose the right creative, and helping advertisers extend their campaigns well beyond the platform,” Lumsden said. “We have agentic solutions that are facilitating better shopping, lead gen, campaign execution, all while making it a lot more efficient. The common thread here is how we're really helping advertisers harness the cultural power on TikTok and turn that into their real business outcomes for their brand.”
For the past five years, TikTok has used Advertising Week to immerse potential advertising partners in the experience. They used experiential activations, like the TikTok Made Me Buy It bodega, to prove why TikTok was the epicenter of entertainment and culture.
Now, in 2026, TikTok doesn’t need to validate its presence. It doesn’t have to explain why it matters in a sea of competing apps. A new economic impact report reveals that 85% of brand partners have sold out after promoting their ads on TikTok, and the platform has contributed to more than $81B in GDP for these businesses.
“This is the beauty behind our core message to advertisers this year: ‘Watch it, love it, want it,’” said Isobel Sita Lumsden, Global Head of Business Marketing for TikTok in a press briefing the morning Advertising Week started in Manhattan. “We are building and compounding that attention on the platform, where people are coming with that discovery and entertainment mindset, and able to convert that very effectively into action.”
TikTok is the #1 platform where marketers plan to increase ad spend in 2027, with 84% of marketers placing advertising on TikTok.
- Kantar, Media Reactions 2026
But that doesn’t mean TikTok is on an easy street, especially putting its framing in the context of how some of its key competitors are going to market. With a short-term ban and ownership change under its belt, the company now has to show how it's applying the vision that made the platform so invaluable for consumers to create meaningful solutions for advertisers, brands, and even creators. Based on a pre-Advertising Week briefing at TikTok’s offices in midtown NYC, the company is already making moves by doubling down on agentic innovations and messaging that zeros in on brand safety and security.
Lumsden framed it simply: “We’re bringing performance and creativity much closer together, and really able to generate much more tangible business outcomes—and we’re helping brands turn their creativity and culture into performance with even better tools enhanced by AI across the whole funnel.”
Commerce Media in the Middle
The epicenter of the new solutions is TikTok Ad Network (TTAN), which will allow US advertisers to extend their campaigns beyond the “four walls” of the app and into an ecosystem of nearly 400,000 apps worldwide, spanning 1 billion users across entertainment, news, and yes, commerce. TTAN integrates with TikTok Ads Manager, so advertisers can ensure every placement is brand-safe, aligned with the right audience, and uses the same optimized creative that allows them to “both deepen their connection with existing TikTok users and extend their reach to audiences beyond TikTok, representing 55 million worldwide users incrementally,” noted Neha Singla, Managing Director of Product and Client Solutions for North America.
TikTok is automating the broader ad workflow, from design to optimization. Smart+ Creative Selection aggregates various creative sources, including advertisers' own assets, Symphony's AI-generated creatives, and creator content, into one workflow. The end result is a more streamlined experience for advertisers to review, approve, and activate campaign creative based on their unique objectives.
Search Ads Campaign then harnesses Smart+ across keywords and creative. Coupled with more advanced bidding capabilities and search budget management, advertisers will be able to better capture diverse user intent. Similar power is being brought to TikTok Shop’s automated ad solution, GMV Max, which can now automate campaign creation and spend so it improves overall profitability, factoring in affiliate commissions, coupons, and referral fees.
TikTok’s Agentic Response
Connected to the ad network is a series of adjacent solutions that show TikTok’s answer to agentic commerce, which includes new offerings for both customers and brand advertisers, two demographics with very different needs but who are both looking to extract more value from the time and money they spend on social media, whether that be through better search and discovery, more resonant creative, or better reach.
“Our position is really that human creativity remains at the core of AI, and that we are building with safety, privacy, accountability, transparency, all at that very foundation,” Lumsden said. “We’re making it go faster, while still enabling advertisers to keep control over their brand and creative decisions.”
Agentic Leads
With Agentic Leads, more service-oriented and even B2B brands can capture, qualify, and convert high-intent prospects. The solution will be available through AI-guided conversations, Lead Agent in TikTok Direct Message, and even Lead Agent in advertiser-owned website lead forms.
Buy Direct
Buy Direct is the platform’s answer to one-click checkout. The branded buying experience is embedded into TikTok, which allows brands to build trust and credibility, while eliminating clicks away from the For You feed, which is a fruitful destination for entertainment, inspiration, and discovery.
Shopping Assistant
Shopping Assistant is a conversational AI agent that TikTok users can access at any time to ask questions, narrow product options, and validate final details. The assistant will be integrated into the entire app experience, so users can get product details, shipping timelines, sizing, and even inventory availability within one contextual conversation stream. It is now live for US users.
These new solutions are being built with key commerce platforms and payment providers, including Salesforce, Shopify, Shoplazza, and Stripe. In fact, David Kaufman, TikTok’s Global Head of Monetization Product Partnerships, spoke on the Advertising Week stage with Shopify’s Aaron Glazer on Monday to delve into how the platform is turning culture into commerce by embracing new standards like the Universal Commerce Protocol.
During the briefing, though, he broke the product vision down pretty simply. For many companies, building this tech is hard. “There’s a lot that we can do to bring AI to that journey, and that’s one of the things we’re really investing in: making that easier and more accessible for our advertisers.”
A New MCP Brings Autonomy to the FYP
The most powerful example of how TikTok is democratizing its platform is TikTok for Business Model Context Protocol (MCP), which will allow developers to build AI agents and tools on top of the TikTok Ads ecosystem so they can plan, launch, and manage advertising workflows more effectively. It’s now available as a connector via Claude, Kimi, Manus, Perplexity, Replit, Snowflake, Tencent WorkBuddy, and the IAB Tech Lab Agent Registry, which shows how TikTok is working alongside evolving industry standards.
“Since launch, we’ve actually seen a 200% increase in advertisers that are using our MCP, and they use it for everything from campaign activation, creative analysis, audience discovery, insights, and we've seen it save an incredible amount of time on driving optimal campaign performance,” Kaufman said. “It really helps advertisers get the most out of the platform with the least amount of effort.”
Post-briefing, Kaufman noted that the new MCP will allow advertisers to broaden the scope of their TikTok use cases and, hopefully, extract more value based on their goals, whether that be through audience targeting or inventory prioritization.
“The idea is you're bringing this into a workflow that the advertiser or the merchant is already familiar with,” Kaufman said. “We're trying to distribute the buying control and optimization flows out into the ecosystem to make it a little bit easier for everyone.”
Through these announcements and a week of associated thought leadership sessions during Advertising Week, TikTok is leading with a new narrative: that it’s not just where culture happens, it’s where it’s empowering brands to show up to support every stage of the marketing funnel.
“We've got performance solutions that are capturing intent, helping choose the right creative, and helping advertisers extend their campaigns well beyond the platform,” Lumsden said. “We have agentic solutions that are facilitating better shopping, lead gen, campaign execution, all while making it a lot more efficient. The common thread here is how we're really helping advertisers harness the cultural power on TikTok and turn that into their real business outcomes for their brand.”
For the past five years, TikTok has used Advertising Week to immerse potential advertising partners in the experience. They used experiential activations, like the TikTok Made Me Buy It bodega, to prove why TikTok was the epicenter of entertainment and culture.
Now, in 2026, TikTok doesn’t need to validate its presence. It doesn’t have to explain why it matters in a sea of competing apps. A new economic impact report reveals that 85% of brand partners have sold out after promoting their ads on TikTok, and the platform has contributed to more than $81B in GDP for these businesses.
“This is the beauty behind our core message to advertisers this year: ‘Watch it, love it, want it,’” said Isobel Sita Lumsden, Global Head of Business Marketing for TikTok in a press briefing the morning Advertising Week started in Manhattan. “We are building and compounding that attention on the platform, where people are coming with that discovery and entertainment mindset, and able to convert that very effectively into action.”
TikTok is the #1 platform where marketers plan to increase ad spend in 2027, with 84% of marketers placing advertising on TikTok.
- Kantar, Media Reactions 2026
But that doesn’t mean TikTok is on an easy street, especially putting its framing in the context of how some of its key competitors are going to market. With a short-term ban and ownership change under its belt, the company now has to show how it's applying the vision that made the platform so invaluable for consumers to create meaningful solutions for advertisers, brands, and even creators. Based on a pre-Advertising Week briefing at TikTok’s offices in midtown NYC, the company is already making moves by doubling down on agentic innovations and messaging that zeros in on brand safety and security.
Lumsden framed it simply: “We’re bringing performance and creativity much closer together, and really able to generate much more tangible business outcomes—and we’re helping brands turn their creativity and culture into performance with even better tools enhanced by AI across the whole funnel.”
Commerce Media in the Middle
The epicenter of the new solutions is TikTok Ad Network (TTAN), which will allow US advertisers to extend their campaigns beyond the “four walls” of the app and into an ecosystem of nearly 400,000 apps worldwide, spanning 1 billion users across entertainment, news, and yes, commerce. TTAN integrates with TikTok Ads Manager, so advertisers can ensure every placement is brand-safe, aligned with the right audience, and uses the same optimized creative that allows them to “both deepen their connection with existing TikTok users and extend their reach to audiences beyond TikTok, representing 55 million worldwide users incrementally,” noted Neha Singla, Managing Director of Product and Client Solutions for North America.
TikTok is automating the broader ad workflow, from design to optimization. Smart+ Creative Selection aggregates various creative sources, including advertisers' own assets, Symphony's AI-generated creatives, and creator content, into one workflow. The end result is a more streamlined experience for advertisers to review, approve, and activate campaign creative based on their unique objectives.
Search Ads Campaign then harnesses Smart+ across keywords and creative. Coupled with more advanced bidding capabilities and search budget management, advertisers will be able to better capture diverse user intent. Similar power is being brought to TikTok Shop’s automated ad solution, GMV Max, which can now automate campaign creation and spend so it improves overall profitability, factoring in affiliate commissions, coupons, and referral fees.
TikTok’s Agentic Response
Connected to the ad network is a series of adjacent solutions that show TikTok’s answer to agentic commerce, which includes new offerings for both customers and brand advertisers, two demographics with very different needs but who are both looking to extract more value from the time and money they spend on social media, whether that be through better search and discovery, more resonant creative, or better reach.
“Our position is really that human creativity remains at the core of AI, and that we are building with safety, privacy, accountability, transparency, all at that very foundation,” Lumsden said. “We’re making it go faster, while still enabling advertisers to keep control over their brand and creative decisions.”
Agentic Leads
With Agentic Leads, more service-oriented and even B2B brands can capture, qualify, and convert high-intent prospects. The solution will be available through AI-guided conversations, Lead Agent in TikTok Direct Message, and even Lead Agent in advertiser-owned website lead forms.
Buy Direct
Buy Direct is the platform’s answer to one-click checkout. The branded buying experience is embedded into TikTok, which allows brands to build trust and credibility, while eliminating clicks away from the For You feed, which is a fruitful destination for entertainment, inspiration, and discovery.
Shopping Assistant
Shopping Assistant is a conversational AI agent that TikTok users can access at any time to ask questions, narrow product options, and validate final details. The assistant will be integrated into the entire app experience, so users can get product details, shipping timelines, sizing, and even inventory availability within one contextual conversation stream. It is now live for US users.
These new solutions are being built with key commerce platforms and payment providers, including Salesforce, Shopify, Shoplazza, and Stripe. In fact, David Kaufman, TikTok’s Global Head of Monetization Product Partnerships, spoke on the Advertising Week stage with Shopify’s Aaron Glazer on Monday to delve into how the platform is turning culture into commerce by embracing new standards like the Universal Commerce Protocol.
During the briefing, though, he broke the product vision down pretty simply. For many companies, building this tech is hard. “There’s a lot that we can do to bring AI to that journey, and that’s one of the things we’re really investing in: making that easier and more accessible for our advertisers.”
A New MCP Brings Autonomy to the FYP
The most powerful example of how TikTok is democratizing its platform is TikTok for Business Model Context Protocol (MCP), which will allow developers to build AI agents and tools on top of the TikTok Ads ecosystem so they can plan, launch, and manage advertising workflows more effectively. It’s now available as a connector via Claude, Kimi, Manus, Perplexity, Replit, Snowflake, Tencent WorkBuddy, and the IAB Tech Lab Agent Registry, which shows how TikTok is working alongside evolving industry standards.
“Since launch, we’ve actually seen a 200% increase in advertisers that are using our MCP, and they use it for everything from campaign activation, creative analysis, audience discovery, insights, and we've seen it save an incredible amount of time on driving optimal campaign performance,” Kaufman said. “It really helps advertisers get the most out of the platform with the least amount of effort.”
Post-briefing, Kaufman noted that the new MCP will allow advertisers to broaden the scope of their TikTok use cases and, hopefully, extract more value based on their goals, whether that be through audience targeting or inventory prioritization.
“The idea is you're bringing this into a workflow that the advertiser or the merchant is already familiar with,” Kaufman said. “We're trying to distribute the buying control and optimization flows out into the ecosystem to make it a little bit easier for everyone.”
Through these announcements and a week of associated thought leadership sessions during Advertising Week, TikTok is leading with a new narrative: that it’s not just where culture happens, it’s where it’s empowering brands to show up to support every stage of the marketing funnel.
“We've got performance solutions that are capturing intent, helping choose the right creative, and helping advertisers extend their campaigns well beyond the platform,” Lumsden said. “We have agentic solutions that are facilitating better shopping, lead gen, campaign execution, all while making it a lot more efficient. The common thread here is how we're really helping advertisers harness the cultural power on TikTok and turn that into their real business outcomes for their brand.”
For the past five years, TikTok has used Advertising Week to immerse potential advertising partners in the experience. They used experiential activations, like the TikTok Made Me Buy It bodega, to prove why TikTok was the epicenter of entertainment and culture.
Now, in 2026, TikTok doesn’t need to validate its presence. It doesn’t have to explain why it matters in a sea of competing apps. A new economic impact report reveals that 85% of brand partners have sold out after promoting their ads on TikTok, and the platform has contributed to more than $81B in GDP for these businesses.
“This is the beauty behind our core message to advertisers this year: ‘Watch it, love it, want it,’” said Isobel Sita Lumsden, Global Head of Business Marketing for TikTok in a press briefing the morning Advertising Week started in Manhattan. “We are building and compounding that attention on the platform, where people are coming with that discovery and entertainment mindset, and able to convert that very effectively into action.”
TikTok is the #1 platform where marketers plan to increase ad spend in 2027, with 84% of marketers placing advertising on TikTok.
- Kantar, Media Reactions 2026
But that doesn’t mean TikTok is on an easy street, especially putting its framing in the context of how some of its key competitors are going to market. With a short-term ban and ownership change under its belt, the company now has to show how it's applying the vision that made the platform so invaluable for consumers to create meaningful solutions for advertisers, brands, and even creators. Based on a pre-Advertising Week briefing at TikTok’s offices in midtown NYC, the company is already making moves by doubling down on agentic innovations and messaging that zeros in on brand safety and security.
Lumsden framed it simply: “We’re bringing performance and creativity much closer together, and really able to generate much more tangible business outcomes—and we’re helping brands turn their creativity and culture into performance with even better tools enhanced by AI across the whole funnel.”
Commerce Media in the Middle
The epicenter of the new solutions is TikTok Ad Network (TTAN), which will allow US advertisers to extend their campaigns beyond the “four walls” of the app and into an ecosystem of nearly 400,000 apps worldwide, spanning 1 billion users across entertainment, news, and yes, commerce. TTAN integrates with TikTok Ads Manager, so advertisers can ensure every placement is brand-safe, aligned with the right audience, and uses the same optimized creative that allows them to “both deepen their connection with existing TikTok users and extend their reach to audiences beyond TikTok, representing 55 million worldwide users incrementally,” noted Neha Singla, Managing Director of Product and Client Solutions for North America.
TikTok is automating the broader ad workflow, from design to optimization. Smart+ Creative Selection aggregates various creative sources, including advertisers' own assets, Symphony's AI-generated creatives, and creator content, into one workflow. The end result is a more streamlined experience for advertisers to review, approve, and activate campaign creative based on their unique objectives.
Search Ads Campaign then harnesses Smart+ across keywords and creative. Coupled with more advanced bidding capabilities and search budget management, advertisers will be able to better capture diverse user intent. Similar power is being brought to TikTok Shop’s automated ad solution, GMV Max, which can now automate campaign creation and spend so it improves overall profitability, factoring in affiliate commissions, coupons, and referral fees.
TikTok’s Agentic Response
Connected to the ad network is a series of adjacent solutions that show TikTok’s answer to agentic commerce, which includes new offerings for both customers and brand advertisers, two demographics with very different needs but who are both looking to extract more value from the time and money they spend on social media, whether that be through better search and discovery, more resonant creative, or better reach.
“Our position is really that human creativity remains at the core of AI, and that we are building with safety, privacy, accountability, transparency, all at that very foundation,” Lumsden said. “We’re making it go faster, while still enabling advertisers to keep control over their brand and creative decisions.”
Agentic Leads
With Agentic Leads, more service-oriented and even B2B brands can capture, qualify, and convert high-intent prospects. The solution will be available through AI-guided conversations, Lead Agent in TikTok Direct Message, and even Lead Agent in advertiser-owned website lead forms.
Buy Direct
Buy Direct is the platform’s answer to one-click checkout. The branded buying experience is embedded into TikTok, which allows brands to build trust and credibility, while eliminating clicks away from the For You feed, which is a fruitful destination for entertainment, inspiration, and discovery.
Shopping Assistant
Shopping Assistant is a conversational AI agent that TikTok users can access at any time to ask questions, narrow product options, and validate final details. The assistant will be integrated into the entire app experience, so users can get product details, shipping timelines, sizing, and even inventory availability within one contextual conversation stream. It is now live for US users.
These new solutions are being built with key commerce platforms and payment providers, including Salesforce, Shopify, Shoplazza, and Stripe. In fact, David Kaufman, TikTok’s Global Head of Monetization Product Partnerships, spoke on the Advertising Week stage with Shopify’s Aaron Glazer on Monday to delve into how the platform is turning culture into commerce by embracing new standards like the Universal Commerce Protocol.
During the briefing, though, he broke the product vision down pretty simply. For many companies, building this tech is hard. “There’s a lot that we can do to bring AI to that journey, and that’s one of the things we’re really investing in: making that easier and more accessible for our advertisers.”
A New MCP Brings Autonomy to the FYP
The most powerful example of how TikTok is democratizing its platform is TikTok for Business Model Context Protocol (MCP), which will allow developers to build AI agents and tools on top of the TikTok Ads ecosystem so they can plan, launch, and manage advertising workflows more effectively. It’s now available as a connector via Claude, Kimi, Manus, Perplexity, Replit, Snowflake, Tencent WorkBuddy, and the IAB Tech Lab Agent Registry, which shows how TikTok is working alongside evolving industry standards.
“Since launch, we’ve actually seen a 200% increase in advertisers that are using our MCP, and they use it for everything from campaign activation, creative analysis, audience discovery, insights, and we've seen it save an incredible amount of time on driving optimal campaign performance,” Kaufman said. “It really helps advertisers get the most out of the platform with the least amount of effort.”
Post-briefing, Kaufman noted that the new MCP will allow advertisers to broaden the scope of their TikTok use cases and, hopefully, extract more value based on their goals, whether that be through audience targeting or inventory prioritization.
“The idea is you're bringing this into a workflow that the advertiser or the merchant is already familiar with,” Kaufman said. “We're trying to distribute the buying control and optimization flows out into the ecosystem to make it a little bit easier for everyone.”
Through these announcements and a week of associated thought leadership sessions during Advertising Week, TikTok is leading with a new narrative: that it’s not just where culture happens, it’s where it’s empowering brands to show up to support every stage of the marketing funnel.
“We've got performance solutions that are capturing intent, helping choose the right creative, and helping advertisers extend their campaigns well beyond the platform,” Lumsden said. “We have agentic solutions that are facilitating better shopping, lead gen, campaign execution, all while making it a lot more efficient. The common thread here is how we're really helping advertisers harness the cultural power on TikTok and turn that into their real business outcomes for their brand.”
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