LG Smart TVs Will Soon Be Able to Track Users Emotions to Show More Ads

If you ever wondered if personalized ads were too accurate, wait until you get a new LG TV. Upcoming LG TVs will now use AI models to analyze user sentiment and show them even more ads.

• LG Smart TVs Will Soon Lose One of Their Smart Features

Prepare for emotionally aware targeted advertising

The AI ​​technology LG will add to its TVs comes from Zenapse, a software-as-a-service marketing platform that claims to boost sales with “AI-powered emotional intelligence,” according to the company’s website. LG Ad Solutions, the company’s advertising arm, has signed a multi-year licensing agreement that will allow it to integrate Zenapse’s proprietary Large Emotion Model (LEM) and emotional intelligence data into webOS, the operating system that powers the company’s smart TVs.

LEM is built to understand emotional and psychological factors. Zenapse's LEM collects data about the content being viewed from public information and understands the types of emotions being expressed. Viewer behavior and consumption patterns are also required, Zenapse can also use data collected from LG's automatic content recognition (ACR) feature - collected from over 200 million LG Smart TVs globally.

Based on this data, LG can categorize viewers into specific audience segments such as “goal achievers,” “social connectors,” or “emotionally engaged planners.” These new audience segments allow advertisers to better target relevant viewers for their ads. StreamTV Insider reports that the data collected will be used to personalize ads displayed on Smart TV home screens, free ad-supported TV (FAST) channels, and anywhere else webOS decides to show ads.

The approach fits into the company's broader goal of turning the TV home screen in modern connected TVs (CTVs) into "a more intelligent and connected platform for discovery, commerce, and interaction," according to an LG spokesperson . TV makers are looking for new ways to use Smart TVs to increase their advertising, ultimately getting people to use their TVs to make purchases.

Advertisers are racing to get ads onto TV screens.

LG's announcement claims that CTV is one of the fastest-growing advertising segments in the United States. The industry is expected to reach more than $40 billion by 2027, nearly double the $24.6 billion it reached in 2023. According to a report from Hub Entertainment Research, nearly 35% of U.S. households have an LG Smart TV running webOS.

LG’s move to incorporate emotional intelligence into its advertising could have a ripple effect, prompting other TV makers to follow suit. With LG licensing webOS to other Smart TV brands, TV makers could be tempted to switch.

There’s no mention of privacy or data security in LG’s announcement. As advertisers get more insight into TV viewers, this could start another race to collect as much accurate emotional data as possible. LG will have to put in place some pretty strong data protection policies to keep the data it collects from falling into the wrong hands, as it could also make targeted cyberattacks and identity theft easier.

We'll have to wait and see what these ads will look like when LG launches the first TVs with the feature.