As AI moves from tools to intermediaries, it’s beginning to reshape how people discover, decide, and purchase online. From agent-mediated commerce and zero-click discovery to creative craft, trust, and governance, the implications for brands, agencies, and platforms are profound. To understand what’s coming next, FutureWeek spoke with senior leaders across media and marketing agencies and consultancies to about how AI will redefine the internet, creativity, and commercial strategy in 2026.
Sean Betts, Chief AI & Innovation Officer, Omnicom Media
“The biggest shift in 2026 will be the move from a web you browse to a web that is mediated for you. AI platforms are increasingly becoming the primary gatekeepers of the internet, displacing the familiar sequence of searches, clicks and website journeys, a trend already visible in rising “zero-click” behaviours. Instead of competing for attention in feeds and SERPs, brands will increasingly compete to be recommended inside platforms like ChatGPT, Gemini and Claude that interpret intent, visit sites on our behalf and curate the options consumers see. OpenAI’s strategy is especially interesting: search, shopping, browsing, agents and even job search are being rebuilt inside ChatGPT, turning it from a platform into an operating system for the consumer internet. In that world, the fundamental marketing question shifts from “how do I win the click?” to “how do I become recommended by an AI platform?”
“Brands should prioritise integration that builds capability, not just efficiency. The instinct to deploy AI purely to drive efficiencies and automation risks short-term gains at the expense of longer-term advantage. AI platforms are becoming the new gatekeepers of the internet, reshaping how consumers discover, compare, and choose – behaviour already visible in rising zero-click search and AI-mediated purchasing.
“What excites me most is the possibility of a more intelligent, relevant internet – one where advertising is additive, filtered through reasoning rather than interruption, and where AI improves decision making for consumers and brands. The shift to Web 4.0 means AI can collapse complexity, act on behalf of users and rebuild digital journeys around intent rather than clicks, which could create a cleaner, more useful ecosystem. What worries me is not the technology, but complacency. Powerful systems are being deployed behind simple interfaces that obscure how they work, creating a gap between capability and responsibility. This risks projecting bias, eroding trust and repeating the internet’s worst habits at a much greater scale. The future hinges on whether we treat AI as a tool to optimise performance or a medium we must actively govern. Capability without accountability is the real danger.”
David Mainiero, Chief AI Officer, AI Digital
“AI agents will move out of demo environments and into real workflows, and they’ll be as good as advertised. But agents amplify what’s already organised; they don’t rescue what’s broken. You can’t hand an agent your agency’s chaos and expect order. It needs structured data, organised assets, defined workflows, and trained teams who know how to work alongside it. The agencies that will actually capture the benefits are the ones doing the unglamorous readiness work right now: cleaning their data, documenting their processes, building the scaffolding that lets agents perform. The payoff is coming fast, but agencies that try to leapfrog the foundation will watch their competitors pull ahead while they’re still wondering why the tools aren’t working.
“Expect substantially more media dollars in 2026, not fewer. When AI slashes the cost and time for creative production, testing, and analysis, the rational move isn’t to spend less. It’s to spend more, on more things. Testing fifteen audience segments instead of three becomes feasible. Localising creative for fifty micro-markets makes economic sense. Analytical capabilities will finally let us measure ROAS across channels rather than in silos. Something like enhanced attribution that actually works. What the industry called ‘dynamic creative optimisation’ for a decade but never really delivered? AI finally starts to fulfil that promise. On steroids. Better creative, better targeting, better measurement: that combination drives more spend, not less.”
Julian Skelly, Managing Partner, Retail, Publicis Sapient
“In 2026, retailers will need to look at their agentic architectures holistically, building efficient connections across platforms and people that retain their context in-house. The focus has shifted from “what can AI do?” to “how do we operationalise AI responsibly and at scale?”. As consumers grow more aware of how their data is used, transparency and ethical governance will define competitive advantage. Cybersecurity is not merely an IT issue but a board-level imperative. Investments in real-time threat detection, zero-trust architectures, and AI-driven security operations are essential to maintaining both operational resilience and customer confidence.
“The most forward-looking players are moving beyond automation to agentic augmentation—using AI to enhance decision-making, empower associates, and create more intuitive, predictive experiences for consumers. Retailers who harness AI to modernise their tech stacks will not only deliver more agile digital experiences but also establish a leaner, more resilient operating model.
“Retailers are under mounting pressure to safeguard customer information, secure AI models, and protect against increasingly sophisticated cyber threats. As consumers grow more aware of how their data is used, transparency and ethical governance will define competitive advantage. The challenge for 2026 will be achieving innovation without inflating operational costs while maintaining both operational resilience and customer confidence.”
Natasha Wallace, Chief Solutions Officer, Jellyfish
“Brands will need to take a more holistic approach, embracing the reviews, social conversations, community discussions, Reddit threads, and retail feedback that AI agents are parsing to identify consumer sentiment. It puts community engagement and advocacy front and centre as key upper-funnel tactics, so brands will need to build these communities and engage with them through long-term partnerships.
“The biggest revenue opportunity that AI will unlock will be the opportunity it presents to easily conquer its competitors who fail to embrace it. It’s no exaggeration to say that AI is changing everything – search, campaign creation, targeting, personalisation and more. The brands that win out will be those that can harness the power of AI and marry it with human intuition to deliver the best outcomes for their customers.”
Brian Carley, Chief Creative Officer, Razorfish
“In 2026, the conversation around AI will shift from being about accelerating creativity to being about craft. We’ve seen the expense in the trial-and-error approach to using AI for faster asset production as well as the cost and energy to set up and build bespoke but repeatable workflows. So, for agencies and brands, the biggest change will not be faster asset production, but the move toward dynamic, data-informed creativity differentiated by quality and execution.
“AI will help teams test narratives, explore visual territories, and generate early-stage concepts that spark stronger human ideas. The creative process will become more iterative and insight-driven, with AI highlighting what resonates in real time across platforms and audiences. Human roles will not shrink. They will become more important than ever, focused on ruling out probability and instead using our experience in storytelling and cultural relevance to increase the quality and impact of AI creative. The result is a workflow that blends the speed of machines with human instinct and expertise, allowing brands to deliver personalised experiences without sacrificing creative excellence or authenticity.”
Amie Snow, Oglivy Roots
“The biggest shift won’t just be about what AI can create. It will be about what we finally accept that it cannot. Right now, we’re seeing a wave of content that’s polished but hollow: creativity without soul. When we remove lived experience from the process, the work loses its heartbeat.
“The real transformation in marketing will come from how we choose to use AI, not AI itself. The technology is brilliant for speed and efficiency, but culture does not grow from speed. Culture grows from memory, community, emotion, and the people behind the tools.
“The future of marketing is going to rely on something more balanced. Human creativity, cultural intelligence, lived experience, and brave thinking working alongside AI as an enhancer. Not a shortcut. When we get that balance right, we’ll see work that’s more original, more meaningful, and more connected to the real world. As AI itself says: If you let it replace effort, you get lazier. If you use it to enhance effort, you get better.”
Ted Kohnen, Co-Founder & CEO, Park & Battery
“In 2026, the biggest AI shift in marketing will be the move from automation to anticipation. Instead of accelerating workflows, AI will increasingly predict audience needs, messaging requirements, media and content consumption and market shifts before humans brief them. Creative processes will evolve into “human-in-the-loop orchestration,” where strategists and creatives guide AI systems that generate concepts, test-messaging and visuals, and optimise in real time.
“Audience targeting will become far more dynamic, with models reading micro-behaviours and cultural signals. Consumer trust will be a dividing line: trust will grow when AI is transparent while delivering enhanced relevance; it will erode when brands use it for cheap content or opaque decisioning. What excites me most is the leap in strategic imagination. What worries me is creativity becoming commoditised if we remove too much of the human soul.”
Ben Gibson, UK CEO, Cosmo5
“AI has eliminated many manual execution barriers, meaning value now lies in connecting disciplines, not operating in silos. Marketing success will rely on people who can work fluidly across content, media, data and experience. Technologies like Genie 3 dramatically reduce the time and cost of building virtual environments, making interactive storytelling an everyday part of how brands engage and connect. Customers now discover and evaluate brands across voice, visual, text and predictive interfaces, and without alignment, brands risk inconsistent definitions that AI quickly fills in on their behalf.
“The organisations that succeed in 2026 and beyond will be those taking control of their definition now, before it’s locked in by algorithms or written by competitors. Discoverability depends on being a recognised authoritative input, not just SEO rankings. Omnichannel advantage comes from understanding the customer’s entire decision arc. When marketing acts as a connected system across media, commerce, creative, data and technology, brands show up with relevance and confidence. Fragmentation will cost brands their visibility.
“Interactive storytelling won’t just be a spectacle; it will become an everyday part of how brands engage and connect. Tools like Genie 3 dramatically reduce cost and complexity, making immersive experiences as regular as social campaigns. What worries me is that reputations are being shaped earlier in the journey and outside the organisation’s control. As AI decides which sources are elevated and which are erased, the advantage will go to those who build credibility signals where the machine looks first.”
