TikTok has announced Smart+, a new automation suite designed to streamline performance campaigns by applying AI across targeting, budget, and creative. It’s the clearest signal yet of where the platform believes performance advertising is headed: less manual control, more algorithmic decisioning.
Rather than another incremental optimization feature, Smart+ reflects TikTok doubling down on automation as the default operating model.
Automation is no longer just about media buying
What stands out most about Smart+ is how deeply automation now extends into creative.
With auto-selection, AI-powered enhancements, and creator content baked directly into the workflow, TikTok is treating creative less as a fixed asset and more as a dynamic input. In theory, this unlocks efficiency and scale. In practice, it changes the role of the advertiser.
The risk isn’t that automation won’t work — it’s that creative becomes commoditized if brands aren’t intentional about the inputs and guardrails they provide.
How to think about Smart+ right now
In the near term, Smart+ should be framed as an efficiency lever with boundaries, not a set-it-and-forget-it solution.
It’s likely to be most effective for advertisers that already have:
- Strong creative volume
- Clear conversion signals
- The ability to evaluate performance at the asset and message level
In practice, this shifts where teams spend their time — less on manual in-platform optimization, and more on shaping creative inputs, defining guardrails, and pressure-testing results post-launch.
In those cases, automation can help scale what’s already working. But automation only performs as well as the creative, measurement, and constraints feeding it.
Who Smart+ is (and isn’t) for
Smart+ is best suited to larger or more mature TikTok advertisers who are comfortable trading some manual control for speed and scale.
For brands still learning what resonates on TikTok, there’s a real risk of moving faster without learning more. When everything is optimized automatically, it becomes harder to understand why something worked or didn’t.
The bigger shift marketers should pay attention to
Smart+ raises the bar for marketers.
As platforms automate execution, the value shifts away from hands-on optimization and toward strategic judgment: deciding what inputs matter, where constraints should sit, and how success is defined.
The opportunity isn’t to hand strategy or creative judgment over to the algorithm. It’s to use automation to amplify what works, not replace thinking.
Bottom line: Smart+ isn’t about doing less work. It’s about doing different work — and brands that recognize that shift will benefit most.
