The countdown to 2026 is on, but what will 2026 hold in store for those working in the advertising world?
Earlier, we heard from the big bosses across the martech spectrum, now, we’re diving deeper with the key senior leaders who will steer their businesses through the next 12 months…
Louis Lunts, Partner & Managing Director, cummins&partners
“‘Europe’s Hail Mary’! In his somewhat agitated Times column recently William Hague warned that Europe risks following in the footsteps of Qing-era China, a once-confident power overtaken by nations who mastered new technologies. Sound familiar?
“In 2026, my hope is this: can Europe’s creative sector be the continent’s new dawn? A last cell of resistance against the relentless march of her seemingly unstoppable rivals?
“It’s not a wildly outlandish aim. Five European markets won 213 Lions last year – more than the US and China combined.
“And if history teaches us anything, it’s that the real world is forged on the Cannes Croissette.”
Sarah Robertson, Chief Product Officer, Experian Marketing Services
“Going into 2026, advertisers want to connect more of their data signals in one place. That demand for connected, scalable insight is what’s bringing Super Signal Aggregators (SSAs) to the forefront.
“These bring together demographic, transactional, and contextual insights, training smarter AI algorithms and improving both performance and efficiency.
“The value comes not just from aggregation, but from the ability to activate those signals across channels and measure outcomes in real time.
“As budgets are scrutinised, advertisers will lean into solutions that deliver clarity and speed to insight; bringing confidence to planning, activation, and optimisation.”
Benjamin Lanfry, Chief Client Services & Partnerships Officer, Ogury
“Programmatic isn’t ready for full AI autonomy…Yet!”
“For automation to go further than a natural language interface wrapped around an API, the entire real-time bidding infrastructure needs to be overhauled.
“While there have been efforts towards standardisation for agentic protocols, it will be a monumental undertaking for this to be scaled across a supply chain that is constantly running, operates in milliseconds, and has a very narrow margin for error.
“There is still much around the costs, efficiency, and latency of agentic AI that is unproven at the scale and speed that real-time bidding requires.
“Expect plenty of promising test cases and pilots in the coming months, but a bottom-up overhaul will be years in the making.”
Emma Lacey, SVP, Sales Demand EMEA, Onetag
“The acceleration of sell-side curation will lead the drive towards a more efficient and equitable programmatic ecosystem.
“Next year, we expect this to become an established approach as brand advertisers seek to precisely target and optimise campaigns for more specific audiences, with their own values and outcomes at the centre of activation.
“Sell-side decisioning will have business outcomes-intelligence incorporated into it, delivering a complete data loop.
“This invaluable approach will see curation maximising efficiency, engagement and performance across campaigns.”
Lukas Schneider, Director Campaigns & Products, MINT Square
“While it may have been overshadowed in recent times by newer channels such as CTV and retail media, audio deserves more attention and investment from advertisers in 2026.
“Many of the barriers that previously held audio back – measurement gaps, fragmented inventory, and high production costs – are now being addressed.
“Platforms like Spotify are opening up richer data and programmatic tools, while AI-driven creative tech is making it easier than ever to produce personalised spots at scale, even on smaller budgets.
“At the same time, audiences continue to lean into podcasts, music streaming services, and digital radio because they fit seamlessly into their daily routines.
“The attention that audio commands gives brands something rare in today’s media environment: genuine engagement. This is why advertisers looking ahead to next year should see programmatic audio as a key part of their media mix.”
Barney Worfolk-Smith, Chief Growth Officer, DAIVID
“2026 is the year when the geek shall inherit the earth. Agency groups will pivot to tech from managed service (painful but doable).
“Agentic from the agencies and adtech lands. Everyone realises it doesn’t work without good data. People get over the fact that GenAI is going to be making creative for a lot of brands.
“Most of it will be so s—t, though, that it’ll spark an effectiveness revolution. LinkedIn will still be a hellhole.”
Elle Ashby, Insights Researcher, Dalziel & Pow
Our hope in 2026 is for sport to continue to shape culture and inspire conscious consumerism. Allowing us all to embrace our fallibility when it comes to “all the gear” enthusiasm for a new hobby. The prediction: ‘Compostable Sports Equipment’.
“The sports industry is booming as we embrace trending activities at record speed. We swap padel rackets for trail shoes, weighted hula hoops ditched for climbing gear. Global equipment sales are racing toward $10 billion, resulting in abandoned gear from short-lived hobbies leaving long-lasting waste.
“We imagine a future where the sports ecosystem matches the pace of trend-chasing and we can be sportily non-committal, consciously.”
Mike Fantis, VP Managing Partner, DAC Group UK
“I suspect 2026 will be the year that the holdcos will (finally) be forced to face up to the fact that the big brand-down strategies no longer align to reality of how growing numbers of people consume media.
“I firmly believe that 2026 could be the year of the indies. As it becomes possible to automate more and more of the marketing function, brands will be able to take more of the day-to-day work in-house.
“The value they’ll be looking for from agencies will lie in agility, specialism and consultancy around business challenges. These are the areas where the independent agencies can differentiate themselves.”
Stefan Hajek, ECD Head of Creative, Designit
“Influencers and creators will no longer be just stapled onto brand campaigns anymore. They’re going to need to evolve into true partners. Think more strategy sessions, fewer briefs, less direction, more co-creation.
“Marketers and creators will move beyond rigid directives and start building stories together, each contributing what they do best. The result will be messaging that rings true for both brands and audiences, leading to connections that build and deepen over time.
“When creators are invested, audiences respond and brands become part of conversations people actually care about.”
Sean Adams, Chief Marketing Officer, Brand Metrics
“One of my predictions for 2026, is that there will be more predictions. This sounds like a tautology. Everyone in the industry likes to foresee and predict what will happen on macro level and share how they plan to respond to this.
“With the current speed of change, this betting on future scenarios will only increase.
“But making predictions is also a data science practice. Anyone that can use historic data about how things did work out to predict how things will work out, have a valuable proposition.
“This trend is partly taking off because AI and technology makes is doable, but also because there is signal-loss in the ecosystem and predictive data is a way of mending the holes.
“Another topic that will be top of mind is how ad spend will find its way into AI platforms. This is something many will be thinking about – not only the actual AI platforms, but everyone, regardless of where you sit in the digital advertising ecosystem.
“From our side as a brand outcomes measurement platform, this is obviously something we will keep an eye on next year to see how our product can provide data and insight in that evolving space.”
Sarah Flannery, VP Media Strategy, Jellyfish
“YouTube surpassed UK commercial television in 2025, yet we’ve been shoehorning it into familiar boxes. It’s not TV, social, OLV, broadcast OR niche. It’s all of them.
“This uncomfortable position is actually its strength. YouTube’s true power lies in enabling millions of mini media empires, creators who each own distinct audiences and cultural spaces.
“In 2026, brands that recognise these creators as creative collaborators rather than just another video or social media buy will unlock entirely new ways to exist in culture through authentic fusion and genuine partnership.
“After decades of digital disintermediation forcing consumers to do all the work, AI agents mark the great re-intermediation – the return of the trusted guide, sales advisor, and curator.
“In 2026, consumers will gladly outsource the consideration phase to AI to liberate themselves from cognitive overload and decision fatigue. The consumer journey we’ve optimised for twenty years transforms at pace as AI agent adoption lands.
“Winners will recognise this isn’t about gaming new algorithms – it’s about ensuring your brand is the one AI agents trust and recommend, and which humans feel comfortable greenlighting as a no-brainer when their assistant makes suggestions.
“I can see performance spend splintering across new to market ChatGPT and Gemini ad products in 2026, as advertisers look to recoup losses encountered from the disruption technology has caused to the search landscape in 25.
“Ironically brand advertising and SEO become MORE vital than ever. While many scramble for GEO to replace old tactics with something familiar, the real edge comes from thinking about generative engine marketing holistically – how all your assets across paid, owned and earned influence both your existing human and new agentic audience.
“The winners will be those who get sign-off on this approach: accepting that brand-building and SEO efforts matter more, not less, when AI handles transactions. It will be time to wean off the immediate tracked data kool-aid to secure growth and an advantage.
Owen Hancock, Regional VP Marketing, EMEA, impact.com
“The 2026 Mandate: Performance, Trust, and the Death of the Silo: The landscape isn’t changing- it has changed.
“Marketers who are still relying on faceless, mass-media spend are already losing. In 2026, success belongs to those who embrace the new reality.
“The only scalable growth engine is built on measurable relationships. Here is the definitive strategic outline for the next 12 months.
“The Creator Economy Becomes Your Primary Content Engine – Stop treating creators like a separate, soft-touch channel. This is the moment they shift from being a “nice-to-have” awareness tactic to a must-have performance engine.
“The Budget Realignment is Complete: Brand dollars will flow definitively toward influence. We are moving from paying flat fees for vanity metrics to compensating partners based on measurable revenue, full-stop.
“Creators who can drive sales, traffic, and high-value leads will command the highest investment.
“The Unification Imperative: You cannot run this program from a spreadsheet. The operational friction of managing affiliates, content publishers, and creators on separate platforms is unsustainable.
“The mandate for 2026 is a single, unified system where every relationship contributes to the bottom line and every dollar spent is traceable and optimised.”
David Wellard, MD, Zoom Media
“Consolidation, contractions and changing consumer behaviour have brought the advertising industry to an interesting crossroads.
“We’re seeing advertisers shift away from more traditional ad formats in favour of addressable, one to one variants, leveraging industry and first-party data to create tailored campaigns that directly reach their target audience in a digital world.
“And while I expect to see this continue in 2026, I also hope to see a resurgence of marketeers leveraging AV, OOH and DOOH methods to increase their reach, harness the idea of “branding” and understand the value of secondary audiences from their advertisements.
“Budget pressure in 2026 means marketers will need a balanced mix. AV, OOH and DOOH provide the mass reach and real-world attention that drive brand growth, these channels capture attention during screen-free moments, extend campaigns to valuable secondary audiences, and provide the broad cultural presence needed for long-term growth.”
Sarah Lewis, Global Vice President, CTV, ShowHeroes
“In 2026, we’ll see more advertisers experimenting with voice commands in their Connected TV (CTV) campaigns, driving increased interactivity and shoppability.
“With voice-enabled smart TVs and smart speakers in millions of homes, viewers can see an ad on screen and use simple spoken commands to request more information on a product – all while watching their favourite shows.
“At the same time, contextual and semantic data enable advertisers to serve highly relevant voice-command-enabled ads without requiring personal data, enhancing both privacy and effectiveness.
“Voice commands will also open new creative possibilities for CTV campaigns, from unlocking special branded content and offers to engaging audiences with tailored promotions around live events like sports tournaments.
“As streaming surpasses traditional broadcast and attention becomes harder to capture, voice commands offer advertisers a powerful way to stand out and drive deeper brand engagement in a crowded CTV landscape.”
Jess Aylett, Head of Sales, UK & International, GumGum
“The dominant social media platforms are undeniably the scene-stealers of the booming video advertising market.
“But while they provide massive reach, advertisers in 2026 risk missing valuable audiences and unique video opportunities by focusing only on the social giants.
“Traditional publishers on the open web offer distinct advantages. Unlike user-generated video channels, where consumer attention is fleeting and audiences are often exposed to inappropriate content, premium digital publishers uphold robust editorial standards, deliver high-quality content, and attract large audiences with mindsets primed for deeper brand engagement.
“In a recent GumGum video campaign with Mars, video completion rates and brand reach outperformed benchmarks, but the overlap with YouTube audiences was just 1%.
“Over-reliance on the social video channels here would equal a significant missed opportunity.
“By leveraging advanced contextual targeting and real-time attention metrics across trusted publisher sites, brands can achieve deeper resonance and reach, while supporting independent journalism.”
Paul Greenwood, Global Head of Research & Insight, We Are Social
Social search:
“Social search is set to surge even more in 2026. Brand discoverability on social media will be just as important as on Google.
“In particular, text-based social platforms are going to see increased interest from brands because they’re so often used to train AI Large Language Models, so brand presence there will help with GEO strategies.”
Social commerce:
“Social commerce is another growth area. It’s already the norm in some parts of the world, particularly in the East, but expect to see Western platforms getting better at it next year with options like shoppable video and more trials of live shopping.
“People who use social for entertainment expect the shopping experience to be equally entertaining, so they’ll want social commerce to be like QVC on steroids.”
How online behaviour will change:
“We’re also going to see online behaviour evolving. Time spent on social media is plateauing and we may have already reached ‘Peak Social’, so brands will have to be more creative than ever to reach audiences, especially Gen Z and Gen Alpha users who are moving away from traditional platforms and into ‘dark forests’ like messaging apps and creator-centred communities.
“Although brands may struggle to get a read on these online communities, there is the scope to develop deeper connections, if not broader ones.”
AI generated content:
“Finally, AI-generated content will continue to appear across social, so don’t be surprised to see reactions against the slop and countertrends.
“While tech and premium brands may lean into the clean, crisp AI-generated aesthetic, heritage brands will want to highlight natural settings and more overtly real, human-led stories.”
“We’re in the third era of social influence now, where we’re moving away from video and visual and into the age of the expert. Next year will see more longer-form content on deep, meaningful topics, where people take what they post more seriously.
“They’ll expect brands to be the same – to provide expert insights and be more thoughtful and ambitious in their approach.”