The AI conversation in marketing is no longer about whether to adopt, but how deeply to embed it. After years of experimentation, pilots, and proof-of-concept projects, 2026 marks a decisive shift.
This is the year AI moves from the margins to the core of marketing operations.
Insights gathered from CMOs, advisors, professors, and industry leaders reveal a clear consensus: the era of fragmented tactics is over. The future belongs to brands that integrate AI end-to-end, across data, creative, media, measurement, and decision-making, while maintaining human judgment, authenticity, and trust.
Welcome to the age of agent-ready marketing.
Here’s how marketing’s top minds see the year ahead and what they believe matters more (and less) in 2026.
1. From Disconnected Tests to End-to-End AI Strategy
The experimentation era is officially over. In its place comes a demand for scale, coherence, and measurable impact.
Lorraine Twohill, CMO at Google, puts it plainly:
“More important: Deploying an end-to-end AI strategy that works at scale, and helps drive improved impact and outcomes for the CMO, clearly demonstrating the power and immense value of investing in marketing.”
This isn’t about adding AI features to existing workflows. It’s about transforming how marketing operates altogether.
Equally clear is what must be left behind:
“Less important: The old ways of doing things that get in the way of the profound transformation of tools, processes, and ingrained habits required to meet this moment.”
In 2026, partial adoption creates friction, not advantage.
2. Data Pipelines Become the New Battleground
As AI systems begin to act as autonomous “buyers’ agents,” marketing success hinges on data quality and speed. Latency is no longer a technical detail. It’s a strategic risk.
David Edelman, bestselling author and senior advisor at BCG, explains:
“2026 will separate those strategically harnessing AI from those dabbling for efficiencies. Success hinges on a brand’s ability to respond to AI ‘buyers’ agents’ in real-time. This makes the data pipeline every CMO’s most critical asset.”
To compete, brands must ensure their data infrastructure can support real-time decision-making at scale.
And the half-measures? They’re holding teams back.
“Less important: Stop wasting time ‘dual tracking’ AI-enabled processes running alongside legacy ones. Simply commit to using agents to scale more operations.”
3. Brand Equity Returns as a Growth Driver
As choice explodes and automation accelerates, trust becomes the primary currency, both for humans and machines.
Rebecca Messina, global CMO and senior advisor at McKinsey, emphasises the renewed power of brand:
“Brand matters more than ever. As humans and AI agents navigate overwhelming choice, trust becomes the primary currency to de-risk decisions.”
She adds a crucial reminder for leaders chasing short-term wins:
“Brand equity is ‘back to’ being a critical growth driver with patience needed on time to impact.”
At the same time, rigid structures are becoming untenable.
“Less important: Performance marketing remains necessary but will become a part of the mix and no longer dethrones brand.”
“Simultaneously, siloed teams and sequential decision-making are unsustainable.”
4. The Rise of Consumer AI as a New Channel
AI isn’t just powering marketing. It’s becoming the interface through which consumers experience it.
Jim Lecinski, clinical professor at Kellogg, calls out the shift:
“The new channel: me plus my AI shopping.”
AI assistants are moving from information to action.
“Consumer AI will move beyond ‘explain this to me’ to become an indispensable agent, actively advising and executing purchases.”
This changes how discovery happens and what marketers must optimise for.
“AI platforms are the new ground for brand discovery.”
Meanwhile, old urgency tactics are losing their punch.
“Less important: Marketers will rely less on engineered scarcity sales tactics like ‘limited-time drops.’”
5. Marketing for an Agentic World
As AI agents make decisions, brands must ensure they are legible, credible, and accessible to machines, not just people.
Shelly Palmer, CEO of The Palmer Group, outlines the preparation required:
“More important: What matters more is prepping for an agentic world.”
That preparation includes infrastructure, governance, and new measurement models.
“This requires building brand semantics infrastructure and establishing data exposure governance to control access, retention, and ROI.”
Crucially, success must now be measured through an agent lens.
“Invest in agentic visibility intelligence to measure how often agents surface your brand, how they rank you, and where you are excluded.”
And the assumption that humans alone decide?
“Less important: Marketing strategies that assume humans are the only decision-makers will matter less.”
6. Brand and Performance, Not Brand or Performance
Joshua Spanier, VP of AI and marketing strategy at Google, reframes a long-running debate:
“2026 is about the power of ‘and.’ Retire ‘brand or performance.’ In 2026, it’s about brand and performance.”
He warns that anything less is self-sabotage:
“If you aren’t building a full-funnel engine where brand fuels sales and sales build brand, you’re driving with the hand brake on.”
Creativity, too, is evolving.
“Creators are your new creative directors.”
And fears about AI-generated mediocrity miss the point.
“AI is here to kill mediocrity, not mass produce it.”
7. From Funnels to Compressed Moments
Brad Jakeman, founder of Rethink Food, sees a deeper structural shift:
“Brand is back as the growth engine, supercharged by tech but differentiated by humanity.”
AI doesn’t add a few efficiencies. It reshapes the entire system.
“Instead of one-off use cases, AI will re-engineer the entire marketing operating system.”
The traditional funnel flattens under this pressure.
“The traditional funnel flattens into compressed moments where brand, content, and commerce converge.”
8. Integration Over Fragmentation
Sean Downey, president of Americas and Global Partners at Google, stresses that marginal gains won’t deliver meaningful growth.
“Minor tweaks to existing channels are no longer enough to drive meaningful growth.”
Instead, brands must invest with ambition.
“Most brands are currently underinvested in the AI tools required to capture this potential.”
Fragmentation is the real enemy.
“Less important: Fragmented tactics that don’t capture value at every customer touchpoint.”
9. Authenticity, Depth, and Zero-Click Reality
Tariq Hassan points to the operational and cultural shifts ahead:
“Marketing will shift from experimentation to integration.”
Zero-click discovery and AI search demand new optimisation strategies.
“Operationalising AI workflows and optimising for the ‘zero-click’ reality of AI search become increasingly important.”
Mass tactics give way to meaningful connection.
“Less important: Hollow tactics.”
10. Speed Becomes the Ultimate Advantage
Marie Gulin-Merle highlights the final constraint holding marketers back: velocity.
“2026 is the year we break the speed barrier in marketing.”
Disconnected pilots simply won’t survive.
“Less important: Precision without speed.”
Her conclusion captures the moment perfectly:
“If it’s fragmented, it’s obsolete.”
The Takeaway
The verdict from marketing’s top minds is unanimous. 2026 is not about more tools, more tests, or more tactics. It’s about integration, trust, and agent-ready systems.
The brands that win won’t chase AI.
They’ll build with it, deeply and deliberately, across everything they do.
Need a fresh perspective? Let’s talk.
At 360 OM, we specialise in helping businesses take their marketing efforts to the next level. Our team stays on top of industry trends, uses data-informed decisions to maximise your ROI, and provides full transparency through comprehensive reports.
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