It’s time for my way too early predictions for 2026. Most people don’t post their predictions until December, but I like to think my predictions are not being swayed by what others believe. So here’s my take on what you have to look forward to in the coming 12 months.
OpenAI and Anthropic will quickly join the ‘power players’ in digital advertising by further diving into native ad formats.
These companies will quickly integrate advertising and ecommerce into their platforms, and brands will take advantage, furthering bolstering the native format category. They will attract more ad dollars and could easily become part of the top echelon of ad platforms in just a year or two.
The industry will begin to adopt more non-interruptive, innovative ad formats for video advertising to maximise yield from premium content.
The momentum is building as more of the audience pays to avoid or skip ads. Publishers have responded with forced ad views, but this is not sustainable. Ad breaks will survive, but the industry needs to adopt supplementary ad formats native to video to see the revenue increase they’re looking to achieve.
The Interactive Advertising Bureau understands this and has been actively seeking to provide standards that provide scale for new formats. The industry is exploring formats like Virtual Out Of Home, Virtual Product Placement, Squeeze backs and Pause Ads among others, and next year they’ll start to become a standard piece of the packages offered.
AdCP will take more of a foothold, and the big walled gardens will be forced to engage in the adoption and implementation of the standard.
As momentum increases and more agencies and brands show interest, Google, Meta and Amazon will be coerced (i.e., persuaded) to engage and maintain their leadership positions in building the industry. They will bring new elements to the table, but brands and agencies will want them to be engaged, and the industry always follows the money.
Creators and influencers will shift their focus from high reach to narrower, engaged followings with depth and cross-channel activation.
They will begin developing communities that extend beyond watching videos into creating true followings across channels and platforms. There’s still too much risk associated with creators, so new advertisers are not as forthcoming. This means they need to create new audience engagement channels to monetize with the brands who already believe in the channel.
These predictions are very much influenced by the fact that AI and video, along with mobile, are where I see most of the audience for brand engagement. Desktop is beginning to show signs of a decrease, and display along with it.
AI is not a channel, but rather a characteristic that weaves its way through all channels, leaving mobile and video as the two primary platforms for consumer engagement as traditional search declines in favour of AI results. Apps on mobile will survive and thrive, and video across all platforms will be most dominant.
What do you think is going to happen in 2026?
Cory Treffiletti is chief marketing officer at generative AI-powered product placement platform, Rembrand. He was previously SVP at FIS. He has been a thought leader, executive and business driver in the digital media landscape since 1994. In addition to authoring a weekly column on digital media, advertising and marketing since 2000 for MediaPost‘s Online Spin, Treffiletti has been a successful executive, media expert and/or founding team member for a number of companies, and published a book, Internet Ad Pioneers, in 2012.
