Retail media spend is expected to reach £121.1bn ($153.3bn) before the end of the year, according to Warc’s new ‘Future of Digital Commerce’ report. This is up 13.7% on last year’s growth.

The report – which explored AI,  omnichannel and the impact of privacy rules – also found that Amazon remains dominant, with a 62.3% share of all retail media outside of China.

It also found that AI tools are being used to enable hyper-personalised campaigns, including predictive forecasting and optimised marketing strategies. It is also being used to help integrate different data sets.

The most common use of AI, however, was customer service and support (37%), followed by image generation (36%) and then data analysis (36%).

Meanwhile, omnichannel growth has been driven by retail media ads which include personalised calls to action, with a 42% higher conversion rate from these than from generic versions.

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Gaming commerce, with more brands partnering with platforms like Roblox, is also an increasingly lucrative platform for advertising and in-game brand experiences.

Moreover, measuring data is a key priority for brands amid the phase out of third-party cookies. According to the report, one key way brands, such as Amazon, are getting around this is by using data clean rooms.

Data clean rooms, which provide aggregated and anonymised user information to protect user privacy whilst providing advertisers with non-personally identifiable information, can help brands understand which of their ads are driving conversions.

In April, IAB Europe published a new set of guidelines which act as a framework of metrics to allow brands to properly compare the impact of retail media investment.

The new guidelines, which were developed in partnership with 15 retail media firms, come after 70% of buyers noted a lack of standards for retail media investment.