AI & Automation
AI Marketing Trends 2026
Five shifts we expect to define budget allocation across UK marketing organisations in the coming year — and the two we believe are overstated.
Our 2026 outlook is built on interviews with 140 senior marketers across UK consumer and B2B organisations, triangulated against spend data from the programmes we operate.
The headline finding: agentic workflows will absorb a meaningful share of the operational marketing budget, but almost none of the brand budget. Buyers are rationally cautious about delegating identity.
We regard two widely forecast trends as overstated: fully synthetic creative at brand level, and the collapse of the agency model. Both underestimate how much of this work is accountability work.
Our position: capability without an operating model produces expensive noise.
Shard & Co · Strategy Practice
This insight forms part of Shard's ongoing research programme. For the underlying methodology or a briefing with the authoring team, contact the practice directly.
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