2026 will be the year marketers rediscover the basics

In December 2024, our survey with Harris Poll asked B2B marketers to share their top areas for investment in 2025. Artificial intelligence tools were at the top of the list. It also wasn’t surprising to see the AI architects named Time magazine’s Person of the Year as the ripple effects of the technology continue across every sector. And in 2026, we will see B2B decision makers do something new: return to basics andembrace AI to reimagine what’s possible.

This approach reveals a compelling duality in how marketers are planning for 2026. There’s a return to what we’ve always known while also betting big on AI as a force not only reshaping work, but rewriting today’s B2B marketer and modern buyer playbook. According to our most recent Harris Poll survey, next year will bring a clear acknowledgement that while the fundamentals of marketing haven’t changed, the way we execute these absolutely will.

THE PENDULUM SWINGS BACK

For years, marketers have chased the next shiny object: new formats, new platforms, new channels. But the pendulum is swinging back. According to the survey, leaders say their biggest 2026 investments will focus on customer experience and brand building—not the newest social platform or the latest ad tech novelty.

There’s a collective realization happening. In an environment of AI-enabled disruption, the brands with the strongest emotional equity and deepest buyer trust will win. By doubling down on loyalty, automation, and reputation, organizations can differentiate and ensure that every marketing dollar contributes to sustainable, long-term growth. Loyalty isn’t a metric anymore; it’s a moat.

But this return to what works doesn’t necessarily mean a return to traditional tactics.

AI ISN’T REPLACING STRATEGY

More than half of marketing decision-makers (55%) expect AI to reshape both the development and execution of marketing strategies. That’s not a subtle shift. It means strategy will move from something built in quarterly cycles to something that updates dynamically based on behaviors, signals, and real-time learning.

This shift requires marketers to embrace AI, not fear it. When positioned as a strategic input, AI enables strategy to evolve with the market and puts leaders in the strongest position to reach today’s modern buyer at the right time and place.

AI becomes the connective tissue unifying audience data, creative insights, content intelligence, and activation. Audience understanding becomes dynamic as AI continuously interprets signals and behaviors to identify who’s truly in-market. Content and messaging adapt in real time as AI learns what resonates across channels. Orchestration becomes predictive, determining where buyers are most likely to engage next and routing the right message to the right surface. Measurement shifts from backward-looking to forward-driving, surfacing early signals that guide creative, budget, and activation decisions.

The strategy itself becomes fluid, evolving, and continuously optimizing. Instead of asking, “Is my strategy right?” marketers will ask, “Is my strategy learning fast enough?”

ZERO-CLICK IS RESHAPING BRAND COMPETITION

Nearly half of marketing leaders (45%) believe AI-powered search and assistants will dramatically change how customers discover brands. That means marketers are beginning to understand a new reality: In 2026, competition happens before the click.

In a zero-click environment, the buyer journey is no longer linear. People are forming opinions inside AI Overviews, chat assistants, recommendation engines, and result pages that summarize expertise without ever sending traffic your way. The “search → click → read → evaluate” journey marketers built their strategies around has been replaced by one where discovery and evaluation happen simultaneously—often without a website visit. Buyers may never land on your page, yet they’ve already developed a perception of your credibility, authority, and relevance.

This shift demands a fundamentally different approach to visibility. It’s no longer enough to create great content; brands must create signals. Reputation, authority, and consistency become the new KPIs, because AI systems rely on patterns across the broader ecosystem, not just what lives on your domain.

Zero-click environments reward brands that show up with clarity and coherence across every channel, not just the ones they own. The brands that win are the ones influencing the answer long before a user ever reaches a brand webpage.

This isn’t a retreat from brand building; it’s an evolution of it.

AI DOESN’T REPLACE THE BASICS, IT AMPLIFIES THEM

The survey findings tell a clear story: AI doesn’t exempt marketers from doing the hard work of brand building; it makes that work even more essential. Rather than overshadowing fundamentals like loyalty, reputation, and customer experience, AI deepens their impact. It enables personalization at a level previously impossible and transforms audience understanding by replacing static personas with living intelligence.

With AI orchestrating channels dynamically instead of treating them as disconnected tactics, the longstanding divide between brand and performance marketing collapses. The two disciplines become interdependent, each strengthened by AI’s ability to learn, predict, and adapt across the entire customer journey.

But recognizing AI’s potential and operationalizing it are two very different things. The real competitive advantage in 2026 won’t come from experimenting with a handful of tools; it will come from embedding AI across the full lifecycle, including strategy, creation, activation, measurement, and optimization. Marketers already feel this shift coming. AI is becoming the operating system of modern marketing, not an accessory.

The question for the year ahead isn’t whether marketers will use AI; it’s whether they will scale it in a way that elevates the core principles that have always distinguished the strongest brands.

BACK TO BASICS, BUT SMARTER

The headline for 2026: AI is making the basics matter more. Marketers are rediscovering that trust, loyalty, and brand still determine winners, while embracing AI to execute those fundamentals with far greater intelligence, speed, and impact.

And next year, the brands that thrive will be the ones that combine timeless principles with transformative technology—going back to basics, but this time with an engine powerful enough to take them further than ever before.

Great marketing and advertising have always been an art. AI doesn’t diminish that; it simply elevates it.

Keith Turco is CEO of Madison Logic.

source https://www.fastcompany.com/91464721/2026-will-be-the-year-marketers-rediscover-the-basics