Lyndall Spooner.
The AdNews end of year Perspectives, looking back at 2025 and forward to next year.
Lyndall Spooner, Founder and CEO, 5D.
When we try and predict the future we often look at what we think was the most disruptive event in the past year or two and project the longer term impact or likely flow-on effects.
But what if you don’t recognise the most disruptive event? What if it has been happening quietly in the background for the past 40 or so years and its real significance is only becoming apparent now?
What am I talking about? Only the next major stage in human evolution, the digital rewiring of our brains, which has been slowly undermining the fundamentals of marketing science and is about to flip marketing strategy on its head.
Major stages in human evolution have previously been characterised by either physical changes or advances in our mental abilities. Around seven million years ago, the proto-hominins learned to walk on two legs. Around 2.5 million years ago, genus homo developed a significantly larger brain and started using tools. Then around 50,000 years ago, homo sapiens developed symbolic culture and language.
Unlike those changes, today’s environment is mostly man made. In fact, it is mostly digital, and the digital world is having a profound impact on human evolution and the development of the human brain.
The digital age has been around since the 1980s, when we first had access to a personal computer or started to use a computer at work. The internet came along in the 1990s. The 2000s brought smart phones and the arrival of social media. Now, in 2025, it is estimated around one in every five people are using AI every single day.
Continuous and rapid advances in technology have fundamentally changed human culture and our cognitive abilities. Evolution once favoured traits that helped us survive. Now we’re creating an artificial world that encourages traits that take us backward, not forward.
Simply put, the younger you are exposed to technology the more likely technology has rewired your brain. In early adolescence (10 to 13), our brains are growing in size and we are developing more complex thinking and problem solving skills. In our teen years (13 to 19), the brain undergoes significant rewiring, pruning what is sees as unnecessary connections and strengthening others. By our 20s, the brain has finished maturing.
If you were born after 1980, it is likely your brain works very differently to your parents and your grandparents, because your brain developed in a different environment and formed different synapse connections. And there is a growing pool of data that shows some of these changes in brain wiring are having a negative impact. For example, multiple studies around the world have shown IQ scores have been declining for decades, with one of the largest and consistent data sources (military conscription data in Norway) clearly showing the tipping point being people born after 1980 (digital natives). This study allowed intergenerational observations and concluded the decline in IQ scores was driven by environmental factors and not genetics.
A different brain means a different human to understand. The marketing frameworks we’ve relied on for decades are no longer accurate or relevant to what motivates digital natives and their behaviour. Most of the major marketing theories used today are between 125 and 65 years old and based on a non-digital world. The marketing funnel theory was developed in 1898 (before radio was invented). Maslow’s Hierachy of Needs was introduced in 1943. The concept of market segmentation surfaced in 1956. The 4Ps of marketing were born in 1960. Clearly we need some new theories.
So what's happening to our brains, why does it matter, and what should marketers do?
Tools that complement our thinking make us smarter (pencils, maths). Tools that replace our thinking make us dumber (AI, algorithms). We’ve become hooked on the second kind without realising it. Digital brains now crave easy dopamine hits and convenience over effort. Older people use tech to help them think. Digital natives use tech instead of thinking.
Our own research shows a decline in curious, confident and conscientious decision makers, and a rise in apathetic and pessimistic decision makers who lack the confidence or the desire to make decisions for themselves.
The rapidly spreading use of AI has become a tipping point, as AI agents provide a human-like interaction with technology, often increasing the confidence of the user (due to the sycophantic programming) to follow the advice or recommendations given. Unfortunately you can’t solve problems for yourself if you never learnt or developed those skills (and synaptic connections) when you were young.
Marketing to the digital brain requires a new strategy:
- Move from driving brand consideration to driving algorithmic inclusion:
As algorithms take over the task of problem-solving and choice curation, the brand consideration set is now built by technology, not consumers. Success depends on being included by the algorithm, not just noticed by the audience. - Move from competing for attention to competing for recommendations:
With weakening confidence in their own judgment, consumers are outsourcing trust to social proof and authority. The brands that win are those recommended – by people, platforms, and AI. - Move from detailed product comparisons to clear product recommendations: Shorter attention spans mean consumers seek shortcuts to clarity, not more data. Brands must simplify decision journeys and make confident recommendations that feel effortless to choose.
- Move from search to validation: Consumers no longer explore; they expect answers. The act of searching has shifted from finding facts to confirming popularity. Queries are now framed around “What’s best?” or “What do most people choose?”, signalling a move from research to reassurance.
The cognitive revolution is here. Consumer brains have fundamentally changed and the frameworks we’ve relied on to understand people’s motivation and behaviour are being outpaced by the very minds they aim to model. Brands that recognise this shift and build experiences for technology-mediated, cognitively-different consumers will do well. Everyone else? They will spend 2026 wondering why their carefully crafted mass market strategies stopped working.
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