From the ever-present AI to sustainability, micro-moments, sporting history and more, experts share their vision for the next 12 months
Shane Buckley, Head of UKI Restaurants, Uber Advertising
In 2026, micro-moments will become the defining battleground for brands. The boundary between browsing, deciding, and buying continues to blur, as digital-first consumers expect experiences that are immediate, seamless, and contextually relevant to their day. Platforms designed for convenience are increasingly becoming core media environments, creating opportunities to reach audiences at the very moment decisions are being made.
Brands that anticipate needs and meet people in high-intent moments, whether during cultural events, seasonal peaks, or daily routines, will not only capture sales but also help shape new habits and reduce friction in everyday decision-making. Success will depend on combining creative, timing, and availability in ways that reflect real-world behaviour, supported by transparent measurement and incrementality to demonstrate real impact.
Phil Acton, UK Country Manager, Adform
Programmatic is growing and changing in 2026 and is no longer tied to a single channel. CTV, audio, DOOH, and retail media are showing how programmatic can connect consumers across environments. But reaching consumers everywhere is just the beginning. To succeed, advertisers need more than reach. They need insight, control, and the ability to act on signals in real time.
This is where curated signals and AI come in as they shape the way forward; they help surface opportunities, speed up planning, optimisation, and testing. These tools make teams smarter, not just faster. Yet they are accelerators, not replacements. The DSP stays at the centre, bringing together all data, from first-party and CRM to identity and supply, so that decisions can happen quickly and at scale.
Winning in 2026 means playing the long game. Shortcuts may seem tempting, but lasting success comes from connecting strategy, technology, and insight across channels. By using AI and curated signals carefully, while keeping human oversight front and centre, advertisers can cut through complexity, reach the right consumers, and deliver results that last.
Programmatic in 2026 is not just faster or easier. It is smarter, more connected, and built to deliver meaningful outcomes over the long term.
Dom Coleridge, Co-founder and Commercial Director at Scale Digital
AI has been a key talking point at most industry events this year, and it’s a theme that will only gain momentum as we head into 2026. It’s redefining how brands are discovered online, and affiliate strategies must evolve to keep pace. Across the industry, the FLIP framework, which stands for Freshness, Local Intent, In-Depth Context, and Personalisation, is increasingly being recognised as a way to capture the key signals guiding intelligent discovery. As AI continues to shape the future of search and discovery, content that is current, locally relevant, authoritative and closely aligned with user intent will rise to the top.
To achieve this, agencies, brands, and partners will need to invest in tools and platforms that optimise their AI search rankings. These technologies are likely to become central to everyday workflows, enabling teams to stay ahead of evolving algorithms and deliver content that performs. At the same time, embedding AI infrastructures to analyse client sentiment and manage relationships will become as fundamental to success as today’s leading CRM systems.
Looking ahead, as audiences shift toward richer formats like YouTube, connected TV, and in-app environments, brands that combine intelligent tools with strategic media partnerships will be best positioned to drive measurable outcomes and future-proof their digital presence.
David Wilcox, Commercial Director, News Broadcasting
As we head into 2026, the industry’s focus will undoubtedly centre around the biggest sporting event in the world: the FIFA World Cup. This is the moment for brands to consider a holistic approach that combines the reach and impact of broadcast with the targeting and innovation that digital can offer.
In 2026, partnerships should be focused on blending proven broadcast impact with the precision and agility of digital activation. This convergence means brands can reach fans wherever they are across sound, vision and screen, with unmatched relevance and scale. With talkSPORT set to bring every second of the tournament to life in sound and vision, advertisers have a truly unique opportunity to connect with audiences at a global moment like no other.
Julie Selman, SVP, Head of EMEA at Magnite
2025 saw connected TV (CTV) evolve at an unprecedented speed, moving beyond its roots as a brand-building tool to become a measurable, performance-driven channel. AI has encouraged this shift by enabling smarter inventory curation, automated optimisation and dynamic creative that ensures every impression delivers more value.
For advertisers, the opportunity lies in pairing CTV’s premium, engaged environments with data-driven insights to reach audiences more effectively and measure outcomes with greater precision. As consumer viewing habits continue to shift, it’s clear that CTV has become the connective tissue between storytelling and performance.
Strategic partnerships and collaborations across the industry are helping to build the infrastructure that allows advertisers to fully harness AI’s potential in CTV. It’s these types of unions that will be essential for creating transparency, efficiency and scale across a fragmented landscape.
Next year is set to be another stellar year for CTV. And with major sporting moments such as the Winter Olympics and FIFA World Cup coming up, live sports streaming will play a central role in uniting audiences, offering brands the chance to connect in real time and at scale.
Matt Bahr, CEO and Co-founder at Fairing
In 2026, the biggest shift in marketing measurement won’t come from a new channel – it’ll come from how people search. As AI tools like ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Google’s AI Overviews reshape discovery, more consumers will find brands without ever clicking a link.
This new wave of “zero-click” behaviour means the journey from curiosity to conversion is getting harder to trace. It’s not that intent has disappeared – it’s that the evidence of it no longer lives inside analytics platforms. People research products through conversational AI, then type a brand name directly into their browser or marketplace of choice.
For marketers, that makes understanding influence far more complex. Traditional attribution models weren’t built for invisible discovery. The next phase of measurement will depend on signals that come directly from customers – understanding not just what converted them, but what sparked their intent in the first place.
Maor Sadra, CEO and Co-founder of INCRMNTAL
Imagine an endless feed of AI-generated content tailored just for you — videos, memes, stories, even fake replays of your own photo album. Your WhatsApp messages get voices. Your memories come to life. And yes, ads slip right in.
It sounds futuristic, but it’s already starting. In 2026, we’ll see the rise of what I call AI mega-publishers — TikTok-style platforms powered entirely by generative AI. OpenAI’s Sora 2 is already creating endless short-form video feeds. Google’s Veo is being integrated into YouTube with whispers of an AI-only stream. The idea is simple but game-changing: a feed of infinite content, no creators needed, fully owned and operated.
Why does it matter? Because whoever wins this game could become the next TikTok – just with lower costs and higher control. TikTok proved an endless scroll and a smart algorithm can capture billions of hours. Now imagine each video is generated for you, in real time. It might sound creepy, but users will get hooked on this.
Expect major user acquisition pushes in 2026 – and a new content war built entirely by machines.
Tom Ridges, CEO, Herdify
In a well-known interview, Jeff Bezos said the most important strategic question isn’t what will change, but what won’t. But every year, marketers focus on the opposite – rushing to predict the next big shift in AI, creators, the metaverse or whatever comes next. Trend cycles create more anxiety than direction, because they push brands toward tools rather than outcomes.
If we focus on what won’t change in the next decade, one thing stands out: people will still rely on the opinions of those around them to navigate uncertainty and make decisions. As AI accelerates the creation of synthetic content, deepfakes and misinformation, trusted human influence becomes even more valuable. When anything can be generated, authenticity becomes a premium.
That’s why, in 2026, the most successful brands won’t be defined by their AI stack, but by how well they harness advocacy. They’ll stop asking ‘How should we use AI?’ and instead ask ‘How do we increase recommendation and real-world word-of-mouth?’ AI can speed up many things, but it won’t replace the fundamental way humans decide what to buy.
In uncertain times, advocacy isn’t just stable – it’s the strongest signal brands can build on.
Thomas Ives, Co-founder, RAAS LAB
AI integration is only just beginning. Everyone is still getting to grips with it and understanding what it means for them. The question now is how to unlock its nascent creative potential with control and desired output.
This new dawn should enable us to do things we couldn’t before, not just execute legacy approaches faster or for the sake of it. Moving beyond the “slop” content we’ve seen so much of, or reaching people after they’ve been added to an ‘intent’ audience, brands should use AI to connect impactful ads with people at the exact moments they’re looking to act. In this new landscape, relevance will be the new standard of success. A single, generic message no longer works; messages need to be tailored to each individual’s needs and context.
If we nail this as an industry, it will be an incredibly exciting time, blurring the lines between advertising and entertainment.”
Mateusz Rumiński, VP of Product, PrimeAudience
As we look to 2026, generative AI will accelerate major shifts in digital advertising. Models are advancing, query costs are dropping, and new standards, such as AdCP, UCP, and the Agentic RTB Framework, will reshape how the industry operates. As a result, ID-based solutions may suffer as increasing awareness of the necessity of data protection, driven by genAI growth, advances tools that prevent scraping and user profiling. On the contrary, real-time data exchange, for example, based on contextual signals from the user’s visited page, will thrive.
While generally, genAI’s way of browsing the web results in lowering user traffic on publisher websites, the yield from each visit should increase due to better personalisation of ads. In addition, more people now understand how publisher-side signals, such as the Ads-to-Content Ratio and also infinite scroll, can optimise targeting, allowing clients to experiment with settings based on campaign objectives.
Data providers will also take on more advisory roles, helping clients build and test targeting strategies, streamline workflows, and improve campaign performance. To add to this, the evolution of the roles of supply- and demand-side tools is growing in parallel. Curation and closer collaboration between data providers and SSP platforms will allow marketers to activate campaigns across different DSPs. This allows them to benefit from each DSP’s strengths, all without losing targeting consistency.
Aside from this, 2026 will also see marketers adopting distinct new tools: those designed to elevate personalisation, and others built to scale creative production. When combined, these technologies create strong synergies to drive better outcomes. This involves considering not only who to target, but also which message to show. At the same time, audiences will also shift from static segments to dynamic, continuously optimised segments. Solutions that allow these custom target groups to be tailored to specific needs will be the ones to drive the strongest results in the coming year.
Jaysen Gillespie, Head of Analytics & Data Science at RTB House
There is much to look forward to as we look ahead to 2026. Attribution will still serve as a day-to-day operational measurement tool, but incrementality will also drive longer-term strategic decisions on which channels and tactics truly perform. We see most major platforms continuing to respond to the need to show both attributed and incremental sales. Whether ads are bought via the open internet, social platforms, retail media networks, traditional search or affiliate deals, vendors who can’t prove incrementality will be de-prioritised.
Marketers will continue to wave goodbye to the traditional search buy, as branded search proves less effective at driving new sales and AI-powered tools change how audiences are reached. As pure search audiences shrink, marketers will be pushed towards more adaptive, intelligence-driven strategies that prioritise and deliver real growth.
Marketers will continue to split into two camps [around sustainability]. The “cool kids club” will feature a high-impact, high-performance group that leverages new technology, best-in-class vendors, and extensive relationships to drive top performance. And then there will be the strugglers who continue to lean into one or two shrinking solutions (such as traditional search or original social) and simply don’t leverage the tools required to compete in 2026. However, we expect that more marketers will see the light and embrace a larger number of partners, better leverage incrementality measurement, and make 2026 a personal and professional success story!
Richard Davis, CEO and co-founder of 51toCarbonZero
After a quieter period for climate communication, 2026 will see brands re-energise the sustainability work many paused in 2025. The slowdown wasn’t due to lack of ambition; it was driven by uncertainty. Many marketers chose to be more cautious in how openly they spoke about climate, even as internal decarbonisation work continued.
That caution is now easing, and we’re seeing regulatory expectations sharpen, investor scrutiny increase and consumers demand more transparency. As a result, sustainability is set to regain momentum across media and marketing. Media-emissions measurement will become a standard in agencies’ reports, and climate impact will shift from a reputational risk back to a point of differentiation for brands, especially for those that can demonstrate credible progress.
2026 will mark the transition from sustainability silence to sustainability leadership. Agencies, platforms, and media partners will play a renewed role in helping brands communicate progress confidently, responsibly and backed by real data, not slogans.
Alexia Nakad, VP of Commerce Media, UK & MEA for LiveRamp
Marketing budgets may hold up in 2026, but expectations around proof of outcomes will get tougher. Brands need accurate, transparent, and omnichannel measurement that delivers actionable insights. Yet this is getting harder as the customer journey fragments across commerce media, CTV, streaming audio, social video, and now AI-driven search.
In this environment, data collaboration will be essential. Brands that can activate first-party data responsibly, collaborate seamlessly with partners, and measure incremental impact across the full funnel will gain an edge. This advantage hinges on engagement with neutral, interoperable clean rooms and enables brands to prove performance consistently across environments and platforms. As the landscape evolves, data collaboration at scale will separate the brands that merely keep up from those that lead.
Dom Dunne, Commercial Director, Programmatic & LaunchPAD Europe at Bauer Media Outdoor
Programmatic Out of Home (prOOH) made significant strides in 2025 and is increasingly recognised as a flexible, measurable, and creative-led channel. Digital OOH now represents 42% of total OOH revenue and as a result, prOOH is also gaining momentum thanks to the growing appetite from advertisers for campaigns that deliver both scale and precision.
As more brands move along the programmatic maturity curve, the focus is shifting from simple impressions to meaningful impact – using high-quality placements and smart targeting to support the full customer journey, from awareness to conversion.
Looking ahead to 2026, the LHF restrictions coming into full force at the start of the year are likely to accelerate investment in prOOH. While digital channels face tighter limits, prOOH remains fully open, offering trusted, large-scale visibility in a compliant and responsible way. Combined with smarter programmatic planning, this positions prOOH to play an even more strategic role in campaigns that deliver both reach and relevance.
Ryan Afshar, VP Publishers & Platforms at LG Ad Solutions
As GenAI changes how people search and find information, traditional discovery behaviours are in flux. AI-powered summaries and “zero-click” results are reshaping the search experience, and in turn, shrinking the space where brands can connect with curious consumers.
In this shifting landscape, the Smart TV Home Screen is emerging as a powerful new discovery engine. It reaches people at their highest-attention moments, going beyond traditional TV and launching audiences into gaming sessions, workout classes, music streaming, and more, with everyone passing through the same Home Screen space. With viewers spending up to 10 minutes browsing before deciding what to watch, it offers a unique window of attention, free from the scroll and noise of other digital environments.
In 2026, expect more marketers to reframe their approach – not just optimising for what comes after the click, but showing up where intent begins. On the Home Screen, storytelling and commerce converge in a way that’s immersive, brand-safe and measurable. As AI continues to fragment the open web, CTV offers something increasingly rare: a trusted, high-attention space where brands can be discovered and remembered.”
Graham Field, Chief Revenue Officer at Outra
Looking ahead, 2026 will be defined by the rise of identity-first strategies. As signals fragment and privacy requirements evolve, brands will increasingly rely on unified, privacy-safe first-party data to reach audiences effectively and measure outcomes reliably.
Generative AI will also play an important role, but its impact will depend entirely on the quality of underlying identity signals. Where data is inconsistent or fragmented, AI risks automating guesswork rather than delivering actionable insight. Brands that successfully unify and enrich first-party data will create a foundation that supports both human and AI-led decisions.
This shift will also redefine activation and partnerships. Brands that prioritise privacy-compliant, persistent identity across devices will outperform peers, with partners capable of maintaining reliable identity becoming central to strategy.
Ultimately, success in 2026 will belong to those who combine enriched first-party data, robust identity resolution, and intelligent activation, setting the standard for measurable, privacy-safe performance in an increasingly complex digital ecosystem.
The above companies are clients of Bluestripe Communications, owned by Bluestripe Group, the owner of NDA.
