Hamish Mogan.
Hamish Mogan, Chief Operating Officer (COO) and VP Marketing Science, Prophet.
If 2025 was the year we flirted with AI in marketing, 2026 is the year we move in together... toothbrush and all. The industry’s focus has officially shifted from chasing shiny objects to squeezing real returns out of MMM. The marketers who win next year will be the ones who can prove that every dollar sings.
1. The rise of the AI creative factory
AI-generated creative is no longer a novelty... it’s a necessity. With tools like Gemini Veo 3 pumping out endless ad variations faster than you can say “version control”, marketers are about to drown in content.
The next frontier? Figuring out which of those 10,000 AI ads actually work. Expect a wave of AI-on-AI testing, where bots test the work of other bots.
Somewhere, a creative director just cried into their oat flat white.
2. Media channels: TV and audio make a comeback
Total TV - the artist formerly known as linear plus BVOD - is finally having its glow-up. It’s delivering better results than expected, especially when campaigns are timed to cultural moments.
Audio streaming is right there too, with Spotify and podcasts hitting the sweet spot of attention and authenticity. Live reads are working harder than ever, proving that listeners trust voices more than banners.
3. Influencers: powerful, unmeasured, and wildly misunderstood
Influencer marketing is like teenage love... full of potential, but nobody knows what’s actually going on.
Despite clear wins - one $10,000 local activation that kept a toastie shop packed for weeks - the industry still can’t measure influencer ROI in a meaningful way.
TikTok’s ahead of the curve with sharper analytics, while Instagram’s measurement tools are playing catch up. Until we get standardised metrics that separate hype from impact, brands are spending blindfolded and calling it ‘strategy’.
4. Bridging the gap between brand and performance
Marketers have spent years picking a side - brand or performance - and 2026 is when the two finally have to sit at the same dinner table.
YouTube is leading the reconciliation, blending reach with measurable engagement through bumper ads and mid-rolls that actually aid in conversions through building out the all important link between the top and the bottom of the funnel.
The real magic will happen when brands start treating their best customers like micro-influencers... inviting them into activations, content creation and product stories. The most credible voice in 2026 isn’t a celebrity; it’s the customer who already loves you.
5. Generative search and the SEO resurrection
Surprise! SEO’s not dead - it’s just gone robotic.
With AI-powered search and LLMs (like ChatGPT and Gemini) driving how people discover brands, marketers are now asking, “How do I rank in a conversation?”
Optimising for LLM search visibility is the new arms race. Those who master it will dominate the next decade of discovery.
We’ll also see synthetic consumers - digital twins of your audience - being used to simulate campaigns before launch. Creepy? Maybe. Effective? Absolutely.
6. The measurement reckoning
The industry’s biggest hangover in 2026 will be caused by measurement. We’ve been throwing budget at AI, influencers, and cross-channel TV... but without scalable frameworks, it’s just a hot mess in a dashboard.
Next year, the smartest marketers will:
● Build systems that can handle AI creative testing at scale.
● Finally quantify influencer performance beyond likes and vibes.
● Prove Total TV’s ROI with clean, connected data.
In short: measure or be measured.
Final word: 2026 belongs to the smart spenders
The winners of 2026 won’t be the ones with the biggest budgets or flashiest tech. They’ll be the ones who make the smartest bets - who know where to lean in, what to cut, and how to make AI their most efficient intern yet. Because in a year where every pixel, podcast, and prompt is measurable, guessing is the only thing that’s out of style.