I had the same reaction, and checked dictionary.com.

This new meaning was there, with its only example relating to AI ads!

2. material made for advertising and other aspects of marketing, as a billboard, video ad, or web page design, or the activity of designing and producing it.

"In our latest campaign for a luxury services client, we used an AI platform to fine-tune creative based on user behavior."

Did AI make up this variant meaning and put it in the dictionary, and AI used the word in generating Google's article? What came first, the chicken or the egg? Regardless things are moving fast.

ad creative (also just 'creative' for short in an advertising context) has been around since the 1960's. It was used in web banner advertising at its inception in the 1990s. Tribes have their own lingo, and language changes all the time. Sorry you don't like what the marketing tribe did more than 50 years ago.

I thought "a creative" was the person who designs adverts, but I guess it's acting as a good filter, to filter out people like me, because I'm clearly not the target audience for this.

My ask is that we not use creative as a noun

Is this any different than current search ads (as far as people ignoring them)? I think this is a lot better for Google. It's always at the top of the page, harder to block with an adblocker, possibly more trusted (we'll see...)

The reason advertising is such a big market, especially online, is that it actually delivers results for advertisers.

Traditional advertising was very indirect. You see ads. Some time later you make a buying decision. And you recognize the brand name that was advertised and you buy the branded thing. A click on an ad is just one of several ways in which an ad can convert for an advertiser.

Anyway, I use Firefox and it still has effective ad blocking. Even Amazon Prime which is supposed to have ads is showing ad free for me. I get these second long black transitions where they would have shown me an ad. Hilarious. Same with Youtube. No ads. But sometimes the black screen lasts for 20 seconds. Which is fine with me. I prefer that over some obnoxious ad.