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Insights · Sep 10, 2026

Where AI companies actually spend in 2026: 12 companies, observed

7 of 12 AI companies run their own Meta ads, 5 pay cash affiliates, 0 sponsor AI newsletters (observed 2026-09-10). They buy performance, not CPM.

Short answer. We checked 12 well-funded AI companies on 2026-09-10 against the Meta Ad Library and their own job postings. Seven run ads under their own Meta account; five pay cash to affiliates (disclosed rates 10–30%; Higgsfield and ElevenLabs recur for 12 months); none appeared as a sponsor in the AI newsletter issues we sampled. What they buy is performance: in-house paid social measured on CAC and payback, YouTube flat-fee briefs tied to affiliate codes, and outside agencies that run creator outreach at scale. A "media bundle at CPM" is not in their purchase language.

All observations are dated 2026-09-10 unless shown otherwise. Sources are listed at the end.

The 12 companies

Company Funding / revenue Meta ads, own account Creator / affiliate terms Buyer role (job-posting wording)
Higgsfield Series B $400M at $5.4B (2026-08-17, DST); ARR $700M (2026-07); investors incl. Mirae Asset Capital, NTT DOCOMO None; ~320 third-party ads ("Higgsfield Race" creator voting) Up to 25%, 12-month recurring. Korean YouTuber 코드깎는노인 sponsored (upload 2026-09-10, tracking link confirmed) Growth Manager (Almaty): "recruit creators, influencers and agencies"
Manus Run-rate $125M (2025-12). Meta's $2B acquisition cancelled; independent, Singapore; final ownership unconfirmed None; ~27 third-party referral ads (manus.im/redeem) Fellows: credits, stipend, meetup costs, no cash; Seoul, Tokyo, Singapore Not confirmed
ElevenLabs Series D $500M at $11B (2026-02); ARR $600M (2026-06); expanding to Tokyo, Seoul, Singapore Since 2026-04 22%, 12 months (PartnerStack); #ElevenCreativePartner Affiliate Marketing Manager; Paid Media Manager; Automation Engineer–Influencers ("thousands of creators"); Account Executive–Korea
Runway Series E $315M at $5.3B (2026-02); 2025 revenue outlook $265–300M Since 2026-08-28, plus #ad creator codes Free-Max CPP plus paid influencer/affiliate program Paid Channels ($150–200K): "seven-figure budgets across markets", "ChatGPT Ads and whatever bids next". Influencer ($100–150K): "YouTube flat-fee briefs + affiliate", "partner with outside agencies running outreach at scale"
Lovable Series C $400M at $13.3B (2026-08-12); ARR $500M (2026-06) Running; #LovablePartner; meme page Pubity Up to $100 per first subscriber (Impact) Performance Marketer (London): Google, Microsoft, Meta, ChatGPT, DV360, TTD
Cursor ARR ~$4B (2026-05); SpaceX acquisition closed 2026-08-14 Since 2026-07 Ambassadors: credits, meetup costs Brand Paid Media Manager: TV, podcast, OOH, "media agencies, networks, publishers, podcast partners"; Head of APJ Field Marketing (Singapore)
Suno Series D $400M+ at $5.4B (2026-06); ARR $300M (2026-02) Since 2026-02, multilingual; plus YouTube search ads None Growth engineers only
Kling (Kuaishou) Q2 2026 revenue >¥850M, +200% YoY; external investment >¥1.9B (Tencent, Alibaba, Baidu) App-install ads since 2026-07 NextGen: up to $1M per project Not confirmed
Hailuo (MiniMax) Annualized $800M (2026-08) App-install ads; ~1,600 branded-content ads (Creator Club) 10–30% (Impact) Not confirmed
Genspark Series B $200–275M (sources differ); ARR $250M (2026-03); investors LG Technology Ventures, SBI None; Sacra: "zero paid marketing" (Japan TV campaign is separate) Not confirmed Not confirmed
Krea $83M raised to date None Not confirmed No marketing openings
Magnific (Freepik) ARR €230M None Not confirmed No marketing openings

Newsletter check: TLDR AI's three latest issues (2026-09-04, -08, -09) carried Atlassian, Mintlify, Wispr Flow, Weights & Biases and AMD. None of the 12 appeared, and we found no direct evidence of any of the 12 sponsoring an AI newsletter.

What they buy: three things

  1. Paid social, run in-house. Seven of 12 are live on Meta under their own account, and the roles describe the scale: Runway's Paid Channels lead handles "seven-figure budgets across markets". Affiliate programs go to Impact or PartnerStack, not to media reps.

  2. Creator flat-fee plus affiliate code. Runway pairs "YouTube flat-fee briefs" with affiliate and wants "outside agencies running outreach at scale". Higgsfield recruits "creators, influencers and agencies" and is already paying a Korean YouTuber this way (upload 2026-09-10). ElevenLabs is hiring an engineer to automate "thousands of creators".

  3. Brand media, only at the top. TV, podcast, OOH and newsletters appear at Cursor (Brand Paid Media Manager), Anthropic (TV/OTT spend +1,184%), OpenAI (YouTube/LinkedIn +800%) (Sensor Tower State of AI 2026, 2026-06-16) and Genspark's Japan TV campaign. US AI-themed digital ad spend was $1.3B for January–May 2026, +48% YoY; AI brands spent $424M in Q1 2026, three times the prior year (same source).

The in-app ad networks are a different layer

Koah raised a $20.5M Series A (2026-02, Theory Ventures) and claims 7.5% CTR on 2M+ MAU; Kontext raised $10M (2025-04, M13) and sells from CPM $3 at a 25–30% take rate. But Nexad (seed $6M, 2025-04) had by 2026-09 pivoted to a ChatGPT Ads operating agent; Gist Ads (ProRata) shut down 2026-09-01 despite 500–1,000 licensed publishers; Perplexity stopped ads on 2026-02-18. ChatGPT Ads is self-serve in 9 countries including Korea and Japan, CPM $60 to $25, recommended CPC $3–5 (choice.marketing). eMarketer (2026-06): 2026 US AI ad spend $32B, in-chatbot under $1B. No public case of Higgsfield, Manus or Lovable buying on these networks.

Implications

Not confirmed: Manus's final ownership; buyer roles at Kling, Hailuo and Genspark; any newsletter or in-app network buy by Higgsfield, Manus or Lovable; Krea and Magnific affiliate terms.

Sources (observed 2026-09-10)