If you ever wondered whether personalized ads are getting too accurate, wait until you get a new LG TV. Upcoming LG TVs will now use an AI model to analyze your emotions and show you even more ads.

Get Ready for Emotionally Aware Targeted Ads

The AI tech LG will be adding to its TVs comes from Zenapse, a software-as-a-service marketing platform that claims to increase sales with “AI-powered emotional intelligence,” according to its website. LG Ad Solutions, the company’s advertising wing, has signed a multi-year licensing deal that lets it integrate Zenapse’s proprietary Large Emotion Model (LEM) and emotional intelligence data into webOS, the OS powering its smart TVs.

LEMs are built to understand emotional and psychological factors. Zenapse’s LEM collects data about the content being watched from publicly available information and understands the types of emotions shown. Viewer behavior and consumption patterns are also required, and Zenapse can also use data collected from LG’s automatic content recognition (ACR)—collected from over 200 million LG smart TVs globally.

Based on this data, LG can classify viewers into specific audience segments like “goal-driven achievers,” “social connectors,” or “emotionally engaged planners.” These new audience segments let advertisers better target relevant viewers for their ads. StreamTV Insider reports that the collected data will be used to personalize ads shown on smart TV homescreens, free ad-supported TV (FAST) channels, and anywhere else webOS decides to show ads.

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According to an LG spokesperson, this approach is in line with the company’s wider goal of making the TV home screen in modern connected TVs (CTVs) a more “intelligent and connected platform for discovery, commerce and engagement.” TV manufacturers are looking for new ways to use smart TVs to grow their advertising numbers, eventually getting people to use their TVs to make purchases.

Advertisers Are Rushing To Get Ads on Your TV Screen

LG’s announcement claims that CTVs are one of the fastest-growing ad segments in the US. The industry is expected to reach over $40 billion in 2027, nearly double of the $24.6 billion it made in 2023. According to a report from Hub Entertainment Research, nearly 35% of US homes have an LG smart TV running webOS.

LG’s move to incorporate emotional intelligence into its ads could cause a ripple effect, urging other TV manufacturers to follow. With LG licensing webOS to other smart TV brands, TV manufacturers might be tempted to switch.

There was no word on data privacy and security in LG’s announcement. With advertisers getting an even deeper understanding of TV viewers, this could kick off another race to collect as much, and as accurate, emotional data as possible. LG will have to come up with some pretty strong data protection policies to prevent the farmed data from falling into the wrong hands, as it can make targeted cyberattacks and identity theft easier as well.

We’ll have to wait and see how these ads fare when LG launches its first TVs with the feature. Until then, the eerie feeling you get when you see an ad for something you were thinking about has found yet another screen.