PPC is getting harder — and AI is only saving 5 hours a week

The most important annual survey of PPC professionals finds the business below rising stress — extra opaque platforms, weaker measurement, and AI instruments that assist however haven’t reworked the day-to-day.

Why we care. Greater than half of practitioners (53%) say PPC is more durable than it was two years in the past, up from 49%. The dominant purpose isn’t competitors — it’s that platforms are making extra choices advertisers can’t see or override, and that hole is just widening.

With 89% of digital spend flowing to simply three corporations, advertisers who don’t construct measurement infrastructure impartial of platform reporting are more and more flying blind.

By the numbers:

• 1,306 respondents surveyed November–December 2025 throughout company, freelance, and in-house roles
• 62% cite platform opacity as the highest purpose PPC has gotten more durable; 53% blame measurement loss
• 5.2 hours/week saved on common by AI instruments — 55% save simply 1–5 hours; virtually nobody saves 20+
• 59% now use LLMs for advert copy, up from 42% final 12 months — the fastest-growing AI use case
• 73% of in-house groups now maintain PPC totally in-house, up from 44% two years in the past
• 20% of shoppers plan to interchange company work with AI — vs. simply 12% planning to modify businesses
• $1 trillion in world digital advert spend in 2025; 89% flows to Google, Meta, or Amazon

What they’re saying. Actual match key phrases stay probably the most trusted characteristic (75% use them typically or all the time). AI Max for Search has the bottom adoption of any tracked characteristic — 34% have by no means used it (however then it’s the youngest of Google’s main updates). Auto-apply suggestions are firmly distrusted throughout the board.

Between the traces. Company survival is the subtext of the entire report. Discovering expertise and rising income are each flagged as “very or typically difficult” by 62% of company respondents. And the risk isn’t defection to rival businesses — it’s shoppers reducing businesses out solely through the use of AI in-house.

The large image. Practitioners appear to have discovered a practical relationship with AI — use it for copy and analysis, mistrust it for autonomous choices. The more durable drawback is one AI can’t clear up: platforms are taking extra management whereas giving advertisers much less visibility. That hole is widening, and there’s no clear repair in sight.

Dig deeper. The State of PPC Global Report 2026