The Convergence of Content and Commerce

The walls between content and commerce are crumbling—creating an exciting shift in digital advertising

For years, digital advertising was built around one core behavior: search. Platforms like Google thrived by capturing consumer intent at the moment it appeared — when users typed “top running shoes” into a search bar, for example. But in 2024 and now into 2025, that playbook is breaking down.

Look no further than last week, when Apple announced it was exploring a move to AI search after searches on Safari (powered by Google) fell for the first time ever.

Today, discovery starts somewhere else. Consumers are no longer beginning their shopping journey in a search bar. They’re finding products in TikTok hauls, livestream auctions, YouTube reviews, and even chatbot conversations. The funnel has flipped — and with it, the rules of digital advertising are being rewritten. The consumer journey is no longer linear, and the path to purchase doesn’t begin with a search box — it begins with content.

The next decade will be defined by the convergence of content and commerce. Inspiration and transaction are collapsing into the same moment. Shopping is no longer a separate destination — it’s embedded directly in the content people trust, enjoy, and engage with.

Several forces are driving this shift:

• The decline of search as the default entry point: Google’s grip on product discovery is loosening, especially for high-intent queries like “best ___.” Those queries are down — and so is the ad revenue that came with them.

• The rise of content-first discovery: Platforms like TikTok, YouTube, and Instagram aren’t just capturing attention — they’re shaping desire. Users trust these environments to surface products organically, not through ads.

• The compression of the buyer journey through AI: Tools like ChatGPT are replacing traditional browsing. AI is great at answering questions — not introducing new products. In other words, it's high-intent, not high-discovery. If your brand isn’t already known, you may never get surfaced.

• The emergence of commerce-entertainment hybrids: Platforms like Whatnot are turning product discovery into a show. It’s not just about selling — it’s about entertaining while you sell, in real time.

These shifts will only accelerate. ChatGPT is now experimenting with native shopping tools, letting users find, compare, and even buy products without ever leaving the app. It’s a direct shot at Google’s high-intent search business. But here’s the problem: ChatGPT still doesn’t solve for discovery. If consumers don’t already know your brand, AI won’t magically introduce it. It just shortens the path from question to purchase — and that path is getting narrower.

This shift presents a major opportunity for creators and content publishers. As discovery moves beyond search, content is no longer just a tool for inspiration — it’s becoming the point of sale. Content will be where consumer interest is sparked and transactions can happen in the same moment. The line between storytelling and shopping is blurring, and those who create the content are increasingly positioned to drive — and capture — demand.

To unlock the full potential of content-driven commerce, the underlying infrastructure needs to catch up. Specifically, three enablers must evolve:

• Transactional platforms: Consumers need the ability to buy directly from the content that inspires them — whether it’s a video, livestream, or review. That means building seamless, in-context checkout experiences across platforms.

• A scalable ad inventory marketplace: Brands need programmatic access to this new class of content — not just through bespoke influencer deals, but through a liquid, standardized market for native placements within creator and publisher environments.

• Simplified ad creation tools: Producing content that fits these new formats — short-form video, embedded calls-to-action, interactive shoppable media — must be as easy as writing a social post or building a banner ad. Lowering the creative barrier is key to broad adoption.

Transactional Platforms

TV still drives massive consumer behavior—over $145 billion is spent in the U.S. every year on products people discover while watching television, according to eMarketer. But that influence largely stops at inspiration. Viewers are left to grab their phones, search, and buy somewhere else. It is discovery without convenience.

The same problem exists on platforms like YouTube, especially as Connected TV (CTV) becomes its fastest-growing channel—reportedly making up as much as 40% of viewership. And yet, purchasing through CTV remains frustratingly clunky. As content continues to shift from linear TV to streaming platforms and creator-driven video, the gap between inspiration and purchase has never been more obvious—or more valuable to close.

To enable the next wave of media innovation companies will need to make it seamless to purchase right at the point of engagement—allowing consumers to purchase without ever leaving the experience.

That’s why we’re excited about platforms like Diddo and ShopSense, which are building the infrastructure for shoppable content. Diddo is already working with a dozen partners and is in conversations with others, while ShopSense is already working with major media players like Paramount.

Long-term, we see these companies moving even further downstream—not just powering commerce for premium IP holders, but also unlocking new monetization tools for creators, helping them build storefronts directly into their content. Imagine Shopify, but built purposefully for content creators.

Platforms like TikTok, Instagram, and YouTube have flirted with commerce, but there’s a reason they haven’t gone all-in. Their core business still revolves around advertising, and deeply integrated commerce threatens to distract from or cannibalize that revenue.

That’s the opportunity for startups: to fill the gap these giants won’t—or can’t—close. At Will Ventures, we’re excited to invest in the platforms that turn media into a true point-of-sale.

A Scalable Ad Inventory Marketplace

The current advertising infrastructure does not fully capture demand. There is a massive opportunity to unlock demand across channels that have historically been fragmented and difficult to access.

Today, buying media from creators, embedding ads within content, or advertising as a SMB requires manual outreach, custom contracts, and inconsistent measurement. To compete with traditional digital platforms, this ecosystem needs the same ease, scale, and transparency markets have come to expect from programmatic advertising.

There are 2 key opportunities to consider.

#1: Improving SMB access to video ad-inventory

A few giants have long controlled the digital ad ecosystem. Demand-side platforms like The Trade Desk, DV360, Amazon, and Criteo have made it easy for brands to buy ad inventory at scale. On the supply side, Google, Amazon, Pubmatic, and AppNexus dominate. These platforms have made ad buying frictionless — but mostly for the biggest players. Emerging formats like Connected TV and streaming still aren’t built for the long tail. That’s a gap worth solving.

SMBs are a massive part of the ad economy, but they’re often overlooked. On Meta, for instance, the top 100 advertisers make up just 16% of revenue — meaning the other 84% comes from millions of smaller businesses. And those businesses want better tools. Video advertising is a perfect example: only 29% of SMBs run video ads today, but it’s one of the most-loved channels, scoring higher than social, display, or email.

AI is about to change that. Generative tools are making it radically easier for SMBs to create studio-quality video ads in minutes. But creation is only half the battle — the bigger issue is distribution. There are still very few platforms that make it easy for SMBs to buy video inventory on TV or streaming platforms.

A new generation of ad tech is emerging to fill the gap. Vibe.co, for example, raised $20M in 2024 to bring video ads to SMBs. With big brands pulling back on digital spend, there’s room for these challenger platforms to rewrite the playbook — putting small businesses front and center. Large companies are starting to take notice as well. Comcast recently announced the launch of Universal Ads to make buying ads on streaming easier for SMBs.

Still, more work needs to be done. What’s missing is infrastructure purpose-built for the fragmented, fast-moving needs of SMBs. Legacy DSPs were architected for media buyers with teams and budgets; they assume a level of expertise, time, and spend that most small businesses don’t have. The next generation of ad platforms won’t just simplify media buying — they’ll rethink it entirely. The winners in this space will unlock ad inventory that has been stifled by a lack of tools and innovation for decades.

#2: Directly connecting creators and influencers with brands

A similar inflection point exists on the creator side. Digital advertising in the U.S. is a $300B+ machine, yet creator and influencer marketing accounts for barely a sliver — just ~$10B, or about 3% of total spend. Yes, it’s growing fast (up 20%+ year-over-year), but it’s still dramatically underweight relative to creators' influence on modern consumers.

Creators increasingly command more cultural capital than movies, TV, or even sports — especially among Gen Z and younger millennials. As that influence compounds and their audience ages into greater spending power, creator media will become too important for brands to treat as experimental. But unlocking that growth requires solving some core bottlenecks that still make creator marketing feel bespoke, messy, and hard to scale.

1. No standardization, no scale - Running ads through creators still feels artisanal. Every campaign requires one-off negotiations, custom briefs, and back-and-forth review cycles. There’s no universal CPM or performance baseline across creators — and without benchmarks, buying at scale becomes guesswork.

2. ROI uncertainty and brand risk - Unlike traditional ad channels, creator performance can be volatile. Content style, audience trust, and platform dynamics all influence outcomes — and brands get nervous without clear attribution. Add in reputational risk from off-brand creator behavior, and big budgets tend to stay parked.

3. Broken workflows and fragmented tools - There’s no Google Ads or Meta Business Suite for creators. Discovery, contracting, payment, compliance, and measurement are all stitched together manually. Most platforms operate in silos — and creators don’t behave like interchangeable media units, which complicates automation.

4. Missing performance infrastructure - Creator content often isn’t directly trackable or shoppable — meaning brands can’t run A/B tests, apply conversion logic, or optimize in real time. Meta and Google made performance advertising seamless; creator platforms still lag behind, especially in post-click attribution.

The good news: these pain points are starting to get real attention. Agentio is reimagining creator-brand matching as a true two-sided marketplace, bringing self-serve workflows to influencer media. ShopMy is arming creators with storefront tools and monetization layers to make their recommendations instantly shoppable. These are just early blueprints. The creator economy is a multi-billion dollar ad channel waiting to be formalized — and there’s room for dozens of platforms to shape that future.

The opportunity isn’t just to help brands spend more on creators — it’s to make that spend feel as repeatable, measurable, and performance-driven as any other media channel.

Simplified Ad Creation Tools

To support the shift toward content-led commerce, brands and creators also need easier, faster ways to create native, high-impact ads. Traditional ad production is often too slow, expensive, or rigid to keep up with the speed of different platforms.

What’s needed is a new generation of creative tools — ones that let brands generate short-form videos, shoppable posts, or interactive ad units with the same simplicity as launching a search or display campaign. By lowering the creative barrier, these tools can open the door for small businesses, emerging brands, and even individual creators to participate in content-native advertising at scale

The good news is that of all the enablers discussed in this piece, this is one where real progress has already been made. Wondercraft, a Will Ventures portfolio company, makes it easy to create audio ads without ever recording. Icon, which recently went viral for their launch video plans to help brands plan, create, and run thousands of personalized ads.

These tools will be essentially to accelerate the shift in how commerce is integrated into content.

For creators and other content owners, these tools will allow them to seamlessly integrate product recommendations, branded call to actions, and affiliate links directly into their content easily.

For brands, these tools will enable rapid iteration and personalization. Tailoring ads to match different content, creators, formats, and audiences in real-time is essential to make the commerce experience as personalized as it is on e-commerce platforms today.

Digital advertising is no longer about intent - it’s about embedding commerce into the very content consumers trust and engage with. The gap between influence and transaction is closing fast - this convergence is where value will be created across the media landscape.

At Will Ventures, we’re very excited by founders that are building the connective tissue that will power this convergence. The platforms, marketplaces, and tools that will turn content into the new storefront. If you’re reimagining how commerce fits into content, we want to hear from you!