As we look toward 2026, one thing is clear: we’re entering a new era of brand building—one driven less by louder tactics and more by genuine connection. Over the past year, AI has accelerated, search has evolved, and consumer trust has shifted toward brands that feel transparent, human, and real.
We believe the future belongs to brands that move people from buying to belonging. Brands that earn attention, build community, and show up with intention—not just strategy.
To explore what this next chapter demands, we reached out to industry experts at the forefront of marketing and asked them to share their predictions, must-dos, and the shifts they believe will matter most in 2026. Their insights highlight what’s essential for:
- Cultivating organic growth and true brand affinity
- Creating craveable, community-driven experiences
- Adopting AI with authenticity
- Keeping marketing human in an automated world
These perspectives reveal a future where brands win not by being everywhere, but by being chosen. Let’s dive in.
Jessika Suter
2026 Marketing Predictions: What Matters Most in a World of AI, Acceleration and Authenticity
If there’s one thing I’m crystal clear on, it’s this: 2026 will be the year brands finally realize you can’t automate authenticity but you can amplify it.
AI will keep accelerating.
Content will keep multiplying.
Search will keep evolving.
But what will actually differentiate brands isn’t more noise, more speed, or more tech.
It’s whether people feel connected to you.
I believe 2026 will be the year we shift from brands trying to “get chosen” to brands building communities people are proud to belong to.
Here’s what that looks like:
- Belonging > Buying
Consumers won’t just choose brands; they’ll choose tribes.
People want to be seen, heard, valued, and part of something, not talked at. - Human-led, AI-powered
AI will become the backstage crew but humans will remain the headliners.
The brands that win will use AI to increase speed and clarity but let their people lead with heart, empathy, and real conversation. - Micro-communities will outperform mass reach
Instead of shouting at everyone, brands will build small but mighty circles: ambassadors, alumni groups, customer communities, local chapters, niche clubs, and creator collaborations rooted in shared values.
- Experience will become the new SEO
Search is evolving fast, but what people experience with your brand and how they are treated, surprised, delighted, and supported will be the reason they keep returning and referring you.
Experience will rank you long before Google does. - Relationship Marketing will shift from a strategy to a survival skill
In a world flooded with generic AI content, care becomes the competitive advantage.
Brands that out-CARE their competitors will out-perform them. Period.
And if I had to sum up the year ahead in one line, this is the Jessika-ism I’m claiming for 2026:
“AI may help you work faster… but relationships help you last longer.”
Now I want to hear from you, my digital marketing super smarties.
Every year I tap into the brilliant humans I trust the most, the thinkers, builders, creators, and relationship-driven leaders shaping our industry.
This year, I’m gathering your predictions on what brands need to understand now to stand out, grow sustainably, and build communities that choose them again and again. Here’s what they have to say:
ENDING
What shifts do you see coming?
What should brands stop doing immediately?
What will matter most if businesses want to grow in 2026 and beyond?
Let’s help brands play the long game, with care, clarity, and community at the center of it all.
Nicole Tate
2026 Predictions + Must-Dos for Craveable, Relationship-Driven Brands
- Stop performing. Start relating.
In 2026, audiences are done with perfectly polished content. They want brands that sound human, show the messy middle, and talk like real people. If you wouldn’t say it at brunch, don’t post it online. - Use AI to buy back your humanity — not replace it.
AI should run your operations, not your relationships. Let it handle the busywork so you can focus on the high-trust, high-touch moments AI should never touch: empathy, listening, storytelling, and connection. - Build micro-communities, not megaphones.
The most craveable brands will go deeper, not wider. Small, intentional spaces will beat mass broadcasting every time. Belonging is the new marketing strategy.
What Channels/Tactics Matter Most in 2026?
Short-form video with a face + a point of view — across TikTok, Reels, YouTube Shorts, and LinkedIn.
Lo-fi talking videos, founder POV moments, quick stories, and behind-the-scenes insights will create the strongest loyalty. People bond with personalities, not polished templates.
If you want your audience to keep coming back, show your face, share your voice, and use AI to free up time to be more human than ever.
Mark Schaefer
In 2023, I wrote a book called “Belonging to the Brand” that predicted that community would be the last great marketing strategy. A bold prediction, but we certainly see that coming true before our eyes. Our customers long to belong and crave connection. The growth of brand communities has been exponential in the past two years. This is just getting started.
Community is one of the four marketing pillars that will continue to be dominated by humans. We do not want AI in our communities. We are there to escape it!
The other three pillars are:
Personal brand — We will turn to humans to help us discern truth and navigate complexity. If you are known in your field, you will be fine. It’s not too late. Work on your personal brand now.
Experiences — This is an overlooked idea. Bring people together. Create experiences of joy that immerse customers in your message and let them spread the word. Nobody believes our marketing and advertising. Write the script and then hand the mic to your customers.
Transcendent content — No matter what happens with AI, human art will persist. AI can make music and write books, but we will always love our favorite human artists and musicians because they interpret the human experience. Likewise, our business content must approach art — fully human, accessible, vulnerable in a way that transcends AI. This is the topic of my book “Audacious.” Competence is a commodity. Competence is ignorable. The bots are here, but we still own crazy. Let it shine.
Bryan Kramer
- Imperfection becomes the moat.
AI is about to make everything look polished, professional, and… identical. The brands that win will be the ones brave enough to be messy, unfinished, and obviously human. Typos might actually become a trust signal. Wild, right? - The “less content” strategy.
Everyone’s talking about creating more. What if the real play is creating dramatically less but making every piece actually matter? Scarcity creates craving. Brands that shut up more and say something real when they do speak will stand out in the noise tsunami.
- Boundaries as brand strategy.
Real humans have limits. They say no. They’re not available 24/7. They have opinions that alienate some people. Brands that start acting like actual people with boundaries, instead of desperate entities trying to please everyone, everywhere, all the time, will build deeper loyalty with fewer but better customers. - The death of “brand voice.”
Controversial: consistent brand voice might be what’s killing connection. Real people don’t talk the same way in every situation. Maybe brands need to be more situationally human and less robotically consistent.
George Whitcher
Embrace AI, it won’t replace you, there is only one you!
AI is here to help and so many are not utilizing it while fearing for their jobs. Don’t be afraid of AI taking your job be afraid of the person who is utilizing AI taking your job. There is only one you and AI can’t replace that. However, someone who can do what you can do better thanks to AI can absolutely replace you.
I predict a cutdown on AI content which means it’s more important then ever to be authentic. We are already seeing this to some degree on Google and Social Media. I predict it will get even more strict and AI detection will get even more advanced. I especially think this will be true for video content.
While I think AI content will get more strict I think AI and coding will get even more advanced and even better. AI trains off of sources from actual coders. If you ask me code is where AI shines brightest and it’s thanks to the data out there from developers and websites like StackOverflow and Reddit that it does so well. It is trained on actual data and as more and more developers utilize systems like ChatGPT and continue to discuss it online the greater it will become. It is already the best code assistant I have ever had. The future of AI and code seems bright.
Aleasha Bahr
- Live > everything else. Real human connection is becoming more important and people feel more disconnected from it than ever. AI can write blogs, posts, make videos and bots can run DMs – which increases skepticism. Being in person is the only thing that can’t be faked. Events, conferences, local meetups – if your people are there, you should be too. Aim for one live event a month where your ideal clients already hang out. This is the fastest way to build trust and momentum. And it’s great to share the event in your social posts too!
- Referral partnerships are the new marketing channel.
Buyers trust people they already know more than anything you could say about yourself. Collaborate on list swaps with complimentary professionals. Build relationships with service providers who serve your audience in a different way. It’s the fastest way to speed up the trust curve. Create a tight group of 3 to 5 partners who you trust and who trust you. Everyone wins. These warm intros lead to faster, easier sales without extra outreach. - Predictable Systems > Vibes. Prices are rising. Budgets are tighter. People are paying closer attention to who they buy from and why. They want alignment, transparency and clarity. That means stop selling like a douchebag and stop winging it.You need a predictable sales process that builds trust, filters out the wrong fits, and gives the right people a reason to say yes. In 2026, proven sales systems will close more than “vibes” alone.
Jaiden Johnston
(What are your top 2-3 tips, predictions and or advice for what brands/marketers should focus on in 2026. Or things they should start doing and what should they stop doing) What social media channel/technique/tactic do you feel must be focused on in order to be a resilient and Craveable brand rooted in relationships ie- keep their audience coming back for more or to do marketing more effectively?
Brands that win will blend authenticity with AI. We’re moving into an interest-media era where people want real, relatable content—not nonstop selling.
AI can streamline the process and take away the overwhelm of creating and planning, but the human element is what makes a brand worth following. When you show your real story, your passion, and behind-the-scenes moments, AI becomes a tool that supports your voice instead of replacing it. Using authenticity + smart AI, brands will stay relevant and build real connection.
Andy Crestodina
Fix the foundation. If I went to your site, would see enough reasons to believe that I would recommend your brand? If not, why would AI recommend your brand? We used to have one reason to fill our sites with proof points (convince human visitors) but now we have two (convince AIs to recommend us to humans!)
Clicks from search are down. But you know who never cared about clicks? YouTubers. LinkedIn influencers. TikTok creators. Pick a platform and grow your audience there. Website traffic isn’t the only way to promote your content. Measure the success of your content in views instead of clicks and you’ll be happy in 2026.
Mike Allton
We have spent the last two years treating AI like a magic typewriter. We ask it to write our emails, draft our blogs, and flood the internet with average content. But looking at 2026, I believe we are about to see a massive correction. The brands that win will not be the ones using AI to talk more – they will be the ones using AI to listen better.
My biggest prediction is the shift from Generative AI (chatbots that just talk) to Agentic AI (systems that actually do work). Right now, your sales and marketing teams are drowning in what I call the “Admin Drag.”
The data shows they spend nearly 70% of their week on data entry, scheduling, and internal bureaucracy. You simply cannot build a “craveable, community-centric” brand when your frontline humans are too exhausted to be human.
So my advice for 2026 is simple: stop trying to automate your humanity. Stop using AI to fake a personal connection. Instead, start using AI to automate the robotic tasks that steal your time. We need to build “Digital Crews” – agents that handle the research, the data hygiene, and the scheduling – so that when your team finally speaks to a customer, they are present, prepared, and empathetic.
If you want a specific tactic to focus on, it is AI-Assisted Deep Research. We know that by 2030, the vast majority of B2B buyers will prefer human interaction over digital-only experiences, but only if that human adds value. The days of “spray and pray” outreach are over. In 2026, the most resilient brands will use reasoning engines to analyze a prospect’s annual reports, news feeds, and podcasts before they ever say “hello.” That is how you earn attention in a noisy world – not by being louder, but by proving you have done your homework.
Jim Fuhs
Something I started in 2025 and I think will be important 2026 is moving to a couple of platforms that let me connect better with my community. The first one is Substack. Substack is a Direct to Creator Platform that allows you to share content in multiple formats and has a social aspect with it’s notes feed and a dark web capability with it’s chat feature for publications. It also provides you emails of your subscribers so you can build that relationship even if you leave the platform, you can let your tribe know where you moved to. I love the ability to have subscriptions both free and paid to allow for more for those that want it.
Livestreaming, podcasting, and sharing videos and pictures are all possible with Substack. My second tip is stop using Facebook groups. I personally am creating a community on Skool to help people create authentic video and you have all the features of a Facebook group plus you own it and are not being kept hostage to an algorithm. There are other community tools like Circle, Heartbeat, and more, but I like what Skool does and the community that Skool itself has become. These things definitely can help your brand build a community as people want real interaction, not a world of AI slop.
Dorien Morin-van Dam
The marketing playing field in 2026 will be littered with AI slop and trashy campaigns screaming for attention. The focus should be on differentiating (and distancing) yourself and your brand from that type of content.
Top ways to do:
- Insert more human faces in your marketing. Share images and videos featuring people. Show the humans in, and connected to your business: C-suites, stakeholders, employees, vendors, partners, clients, community members, influencers… all of these ‘faces’ will humanize your brand and lend that authenticity that AI can’t give you, no matter how hard you try.
- Show up live; in-person, and online. Get out of the office to attend conferences, workshops, and networking events. Meet people IRL, then connect with them online afterward to nurture those relationships. In addition, start showing up live; host planned webinars, live shows, podcasts, or just go live when something is on your mind, or a topic in your industry is trending. No AI “personality” can do that for you, or take over! Going live and sharing your lived experience and expertise will make your thought leadership shine.
- Stay curious. a. Never stop learning or experimenting. b. Never lean into something so hard that you’ll fall over if that piece is removed! c. Never stop stalking your own analytics for things that moved the needle. d. Never copy your competition; instead, be different. e. Never forget that you are making content for your audience, so listen to what they are saying, what they need and what their sentiment is. f. Never give up trying new formats, new platforms and new ideas in marketing g. Never stop showing up or engaging with those who show up for you on your socials.
Judi Fox
With AI advancements happening faster and faster, the predictions for 2026 might come true in the first month. Here are my top 3 #foxrocks predictions for next year:
- Stories will outperform AI.
High-volume posting without storytelling won’t get results, at least not the way posting used to work. The good news is that brands that use storytelling across their business will earn more trust than AI.
- Funnels will need to be more “Fun”.
In 2026, sales funnels will have to make people “feel” something like fun, delight, curiosity, or another emotion. People will know when they’re inside an AI funnel and will gravitate toward brands that create personal, human moments throughout the experience. - LinkedIn will lean into expert credibility.
Because LinkedIn connects our names, companies, and reputations, I predict they will invest in more long-form content tools to elevate credible experts. Newsletter and video features will motivate more B2B and B2C businesses to show up stronger on LinkedIn.
The differentiator in 2026 will be sharing your expertise on credible platforms (and LinkedIn is near the top of that list!).