2026 Bold Predictions

What Growth Will Really Require Next Year

Everyone’s bracing for more change. The smart ones are deciding how to meet it. 

Market volatility isn’t new. The speed isn’t slowing. And AI isn’t going to wait for your teams and data to catch up.

2026 won’t reward reactivity. It will reward the ones who can adapt with purpose, connect across silos and deliver impact when it counts.

These are the five foundational shifts we believe will shape how—and how fast—brands grow in 2026.

Let’s get into it.

2026 PREDICTION

The era of AI as a creative sidekick is over. In 2026, AI agents will deliver real value by triggering journeys, adjusting spend and personalizing experiences on the fly.

The competitive edge won’t come from clever prompting. It will come from clean, structured and connected data.

According to SoftServe’s 2025 global study of 750 business leaders, 65% reported that no one in their organization fully understands the data they collect or how to properly access it. This gap in data readiness poses a significant risk as companies move into an era of agentic marketing. Without clear ownership, structure and understanding of their data, brands may face increasing liability as AI agents begin making decisions and acting on signals before teams ever see them.

WHAT TO EXPECT

Expect the focus to be on building data foundations that create intelligence engines that can turn real-time signals into trustworthy action.

• Investment in AI-native data platforms like Snowflake, Databricks, Salesforce Data 360, and CDPs built for autonomous systems
• A shift toward shared accountability between marketing and data leaders on how data is structured and activated across the business
• Growing board-level pressure to show AI’s impact on growth and innovation—not just speed and productivity savings

2026 PREDICTION

In 2026, marketing can’t afford to run in silos. Analytics over here. CRM over there. Creative, strategy, media, and tech moving on separate timelines, managed by different teams, judged on different KPIs.

The result? Wasted spend. Slower scale. And disjointed efforts that miss the customer moment. When each function operates in isolation, every team builds its own version of the truth—and no one sees the full picture.

But here’s the reality: complexity isn’t going away. Markets are moving faster. AI is raising the bar for orchestration. And customer expectations span every channel and touchpoint. Enterprises can no longer afford to treat integration as optional.

Brands that will grow won’t just work together—they’ll think together. And they’ll rely on partners who can deliver a full-funnel, signal-to-experience impact on the business.

According to research from eMarketer and Zeta, 40% of marketers say that these invisible walls between teams are their top obstacle to success. And in a year where velocity matters more than volume, disconnection will cost you.

WHAT TO EXPECT

Expect mounting pressure to remove fragmentation and eliminate strategy gaps between functions:

• CMOs will shift from vendor management to orchestration mandates
• RFPs will prioritize integration, data fluency and cross-functional POVs
• “Channel-first” planning will give way to signal-first, experience-led execution

2026 PREDICTION

2026 won’t be kind to rigid marketing plans. Economic uncertainty. Policy shifts. Channel and platform volatility. Shrinking timelines and mounting performance pressure. Sticking to a static roadmap won’t cut it while everything—including your customer—is moving faster.

Growth will come from dynamic execution. That means marketing teams will need to operate more like adaptive systems: modular, responsive and built to evolve.

But adaptability goes beyond workflows and frameworks. It really starts with people. Progress will depend on individuals who are willing to lean in, stretch into new skills and keep learning as expectations shift. And it will require leadership—at every level—to support that evolution while keeping teams focused and aligned. The most effective organizations will be the ones where change is met with alignment, and where leaders understand how to shift together.

According to Meltwater’s Digital 2026 Global Overview Report, more than one billion people now use AI-powered tools each month. This isn’t just changing how customers discover and engage; it’s changing what they expect. Real-time responses. Personalized content. Seamless experiences. As those expectations rise, marketers will need to adapt not only how they plan, but also how they lead teams, apply tools and drive decisions based on real-time signals.

WHAT TO EXPECT

Adaptability will become a strategic operating principle:

• Modular creative and message systems will replace static campaign calendars
• More budgets will be reallocated mid-quarter based on signal, not season
• AI-triggered adjustments will redefine “real time”
• Success attribution will become more collective, reflecting cross-functional execution

2026 PREDICTION

In 2026, discovery won’t be driven by human curiosity; it’ll be shaped by AI judgment. Generative engines are now the front door to discovery, decision-making and purchase. From search to summaries to recommendations, these systems will decide what content surfaces—and what gets skipped.

A 2025 Bain & Company study shows 80% of search users rely on AI summaries at least 40% of the time, and 60% of searches now end without a click. And McKinsey forecasts that AI-powered search will influence $750 billion in consumer spend by 2028. That means your content is being evaluated long before a human ever sees it.

To win visibility, marketers will need to create content for two audiences: the customer and the model. One earns trust. The other drives conversion.

That is going to require a smarter content strategy. One that’s structured, sourced, and semantically rich, but grounded in what people actually care about.

WHAT TO EXPECT

As generative engines reshape discovery, content strategy will need to meet a new standard for both trust and technical quality:

• SEO will still drive traffic, but it won’t be enough on its own. The rise of “search everywhere optimization” will push brands to show up across engines, summaries and interfaces.
• GEO (Generative Engine Optimization) will emerge as the primary line of defense for Brand Reputation. Without it, brands risk AI hallucinations or having their narrative defined by competitors.
• Structured data, source attribution and factual precision will become performance levers.
• Content will be reframed as “trainable input”— created as much for AI comprehension as human interest
• Visibility metrics will evolve as clicks decline, and brand trust becomes the new currency of performance

2026 PREDICTION

In 2026, enterprise marketers face a dual mandate: get more from the stack they already have—and redesign it for the speed, scale and complexity AI now demands.

AI is redefining how systems connect, learn and respond. Most stacks weren’t built for that. Siloed tools, brittle integrations, and legacy handoffs simply can’t keep pace with agent-led workflows or real-time orchestration.

That’s why composability is quickly becoming the new standard. But this isn’t about rip-and-replace. It’s about extending core platforms—like Salesforce, Braze, Adobe, Snowflake, Databricks—with modular services, zero-copy integrations, and orchestration layers designed for intelligence at speed.

New interoperability standards—like Model Context Protocol (MCP), which helps platforms and AI agents share context in real time—are already enabling systems to “think” together faster and with less friction. And in an agentic future, where AI handles activation on its own, your systems need to do more than connect. They need to coordinate.

According to Gartner, organizations that adopt a composable architecture will outpace competitors by 80% in new feature delivery by 2027. And with more than 15,000 martech tools in play (Chiefmartec), integration should be at the center of your growth strategy.

WHAT TO EXPECT

As composability moves from innovation to execution mandate, expect:

• A wave of composable RFPs driven by stack fatigue, new AI demands and pricing shifts
• Platform consolidation + modular enhancements, replacing “rip-and-replace” with “extend and optimize”
• Greater adoption of interoperability standards (like MCP) to unify agents, platforms and workflows
• Budget reallocation from system maintenance to growth-enabling architecture and orchestration
• Increased C-suite and board scrutiny on infrastructure’s impact on growth—not just process or speed