AI, trust, and impact: what will shape marketing in 2026
Marketing is undergoing one of its biggest shifts in decades. AI is reshaping how content is created and consumed, trust in digital information is declining, and economic pressure is raising expectations on performance.
These forces are redefining how brands communicate, differentiate, and earn attention. In 2026, three major trends emerge that will influence what effective marketing looks like in the year ahead.
1. AI becomes the engine of a new marketing era
AI is rapidly becoming foundational to marketing.
- Gartner’s marketing forecasts highlight how generative AI is reshaping social media, search, creative work, and brand positioning, and introduce the concept of “AI delegates,” machine agents that increasingly mediate what content customers see.
- McKinsey’s recent marketing research shows that generative and agentic AI are accelerating core marketing capabilities such as creative development, targeting, and customer journey optimization.
In 2026, AI becomes the default engine powering how marketing content is produced, optimized, and delivered. Our assumptions about how we should go to market, and how customer journeys should work, will be fundamentally changed as we get the capability to converse with customers rather than just talking at them.
Why this creates a new challenge for marketers
As AI tools become widely accessible, marketers risk drifting toward “AI sameness,” where content, messaging, and experiences become indistinguishable across brands. AI accelerates production but doesn’t inherently create differentiation, emotional connection, or trust. Marketing becomes faster, but potentially more generic.
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How brands are navigating this new era of AI-driven marketing
A clear pattern is emerging as AI becomes standard across marketing organizations: experiences that reflect emotional nuance, clarity, and authenticity tend to stand out in an increasingly automated landscape. As AI-generated content and conversations become more common, audiences respond more strongly to experiences that reflect emotional nuance, clarity, and authenticity. AI-driven experiences need to be optimized for personality and credibility, not just usability.
In many cases, customer expectations vary widely; some moments call for speed and automation, while others demand reassurance or a human touch. These dynamics are shaping how marketing teams think about differentiation as AI adoption accelerates.
The combination of AI’s efficiency and a clearer understanding of customer expectations enables marketers to build experiences that feel personal, relevant, and authentic at scale. In other words: AI powers the engine; insight steers the direction.
2. Declining trust redefines what makes marketing credible
Consumers are becoming increasingly skeptical of online content, much of it driven by the explosion of automated and AI-generated material.
- Gartner’s marketing trends emphasize that AI-powered content will reshape social media and search, and that consumers are increasingly disillusioned with the volume and reliability of online content.
- Deloitte’s Global Marketing Trends research emphasizes that in environments marked by uncertainty, brands that strengthen human-centered design and empathetic experiences outperform peers in customer loyalty.
- Additionally, broad consumer polling shows that most Americans now trust online information less than they did in prior years, citing difficulty distinguishing between authentic and synthetic content.
Collectively, these forces point to a 2026 environment where trust, authenticity, and emotional resonance are in short supply—and therefore more valuable than ever.
Why this creates a new challenge for marketers
With more content flooding every channel and with audience trust eroding, traditional marketing signals, visual polish, high production value, and clever messaging no longer guarantee credibility or impact. Brands risk being dismissed as generic, overly automated, or out of touch.
Customers are looking for messages and experiences that feel real, clarified, and aligned with their lived experiences, not mass-generated or impersonal.
How brands are navigating rising skepticism
A noticeable trend is emerging as trust declines: the brands gaining traction are those creating experiences that feel clear, human, and aligned with how people actually make decisions. Customers increasingly distinguish between messaging that feels authentic and messaging that feels overly automated or engineered.
For example, many brands are observing that audience reactions are shaped less by the offer itself and more by how genuine, transparent, or aligned the messaging feels. These emotional cues are shaping how brands think about credibility in a crowded content landscape.
As content gets noisier and trust declines, clarity about what audiences value is becoming one of the strongest signals a brand can send.
3. Performance pressure is redefining how marketing decisions get made
Marketing teams are facing increased pressure to show clearer, more consistent performance.
- Deloitte’s research on marketing investment trends shows that organizations that rebalance toward martech and smarter decisioning can, on average, see an 18% greater sales lift from marketing and 7% higher overall revenue growth.
- McKinsey reports that CMOs are increasingly expected to own growth outcomes, yet often lack the visibility needed to connect marketing activities to real business results.
Together, these insights point to a 2026 landscape where traditional, after-the-fact performance indicators are no longer enough.
Why this creates a new challenge
Historically, marketing decisions have relied heavily on past performance, early metrics, and broad assumptions about what audiences want. But as budgets tighten and pressure rises, these backward-looking signals are proving insufficient. A campaign that appears promising based on benchmarks or early engagement can still fall short once it reaches real audiences, and by that point, the investment has already been made.
How expectations for decision-making are shifting
Across the industry, there is a growing focus on understanding audience reactions, preferences, and expectations earlier in the process. Teams are looking for clearer signals about what people find compelling or confusing before campaigns launch at scale. This shift reflects a broader trend toward reducing guesswork and making more confident decisions in an environment where the margin for error is shrinking.
As performance pressure rises, the ability to understand audience reactions earlier—before major investments are made—is increasingly shaping how marketing decisions are made.
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