By Yikai Li, General Manager of Europe and North America, Nativex
There is an expectation that digital marketing will continue to evolve significantly due to the increasing use of artificial intelligence and its impact on digital marketers’ workflows.
The marketers who thrive in this new environment won’t just produce content faster. They’ll use machines to refine their brand’s core messaging and targeting, as well as the influencers with whom they collaborate. The competitive advantage won’t be who has more ads, but who has smarter inputs.
Here are four predictions for where digital marketing is heading in 2026.
AI Search Gets Conversational
Search marketing will continue to shift away from traditional search and toward LLM prompts, subtly altering how we search. Consumers have historically found what they were looking for online by typing words into a search query and clicking on the links returned by Google or another search engine. In 2026, consumers may not “search” as much as converse with LLMs and AI agents, for advice, inspiration, and purchase guidance in natural language. They will continue to refine and direct the agent towards a more specific and streamlined recommendation. They will also become more granular in their requests: fewer ‘best watch’ broad searches, and more “best watch under $200 that excels at fitness tracking.”
This, of course, flips the traditional search engine playbook on its head. While many of the most popular LLMs have at least hinted that they will consider launching ad products, it remains a very organic environment. Performance marketers who previously depended on significant demand generated by search ads will have to rethink their playbooks.
Companies are now focused on generative engine optimization (GEO), somewhat akin to search engine optimization (SEO), which considers how often a company appears in relevant LLM searches. It is prompting companies to redirect resources to high-quality organic and third-party editorial content that the models prioritize.
Creative Testing Becomes Continuous
The other Capital-A trend – automation – will also reshape marketing in 2026, especially when it comes to creative workflows. Gone are the days of creating an ad, launching it, and making adjustments to a future campaign based on its performance. There are plenty of tools and platforms that enable automatic testing of creative and, increasingly, the ability to use AI to tweak individual scenes or full-scale variations of the ad. As a result, it’s transforming the creative process from a linear sequence into a continuous feedback loop.
This will create an arms race. It’s no longer just about how creative your team is, but rather how data-driven they are and how quickly they can iterate. Many marketers’ jobs will shift from pure content creation to building and enhancing systems that parse historical data and ads to predict what will work well in the future.
The IP Era Supercharges Branding
While using famous people and IP has been a hallmark of AI video generation since the beginning – Will Smith eating spaghetti will likely forever be the touchstone for quality enhancements – OpenAI’s introduction of Sora 2 fundamentally changed the game.
The AI-video-generated social network creates a never-ending game of catch-up as intellectual property (IP) owners balance protecting their rights while taking part in the new world. Expect more of them to embrace co-created intellectual property, whether by utilizing AI with guardrails or their own creative outputs, to foster deeper relationships with advertisers and other brands.
While this is not necessarily a new trend, as evidenced by Star Wars toys and Fruity Pebbles cereal, AI makes these opportunities limitless. This will be especially pronounced with Asian entertainment and franchises where, outside of the global export of K-Pop bands, there has been a case of underexposure.
Global Stories, Local Emotion
We are very far removed from the days of a guidebook determining where a tourist stays, eats, and visits. Tourism has transformed into a real-time experience where younger travelers will visit destinations based on mobile platforms like TikTok, Xiaohongshu, or Instagram Reels.
Tourists will also use AI agents to help them navigate their destinations and offer recommendations. Those involved in tourism must invest in mobile-native storytelling and ensure they show up in AI searches, especially as tourism rebounds from its pandemic declines.
The Rise of the AI Influencer
The influencer economy continues to grow in stature, audience, and revenues. It is maturing into a measurable, performance-driven ecosystem where advertisers are moving beyond caring about impressions or reach towards verifiable business results.
Consumers are increasingly trusting influencers to recommend high-quality products and solutions. The only limit has been the number of influencers there are. Enter AI.
AI-generated characters will soon transform from novelty to necessity. Brands will want to turn to AI for enhanced control and reach. But human influencers will still have a place in this new world. In fact, we may see scenarios where both interact with each other. The result: a new kind of marketing choreography, where humans and AI share the stage.
Ultimately, a Year of Yet More Change
If 2025 was a year of change in the marketing world, 2026 will be even more transformative. We can anticipate significant leaps in AI, which will extend to creative decision-making, media targeting, and influencer marketing. Those who stay ahead of the curve and embrace these trends will succeed, while those who fall behind will have an increasingly long gap to make up.
