Trumps Tariffs Will Make AI Costs Soar, But Adoption Won’t Slow [Video]

As the reeling global markets can attest, President Trump’s tariffs have far-reaching implications, and the AI industry is no different.

While semiconductors remain exempt from the proposed tariff hikes, the AI ecosystem runs on far more than just chips—and the cost of everything else is about to rise. From cloud computing to data center parts and substrate materials, the less visible layers of AI infrastructure are set to face new pressures, triggering a chain reaction across marketing, talent, and technology investment strategies.

But “tariffs won’t slow AI down,” said Jason Snyder, chief technology officer at Momentum Worldwide. “They’ll speed up the scramble. Scarcity drives adoption and AI will feel more inevitable than ever.”

Here are the key areas where the next phase of trade policy will reshape the AI sector and the advertising industry.

Agencies rebalance talent  

Agencies are tapping into AI both creatively and operationally. But they don’t control the infrastructure beneath it—like Nvidia’schips or the compute pipelines powering today’s largest models. That …