Learn how leading brands and agencies are evolving their full-funnel strategies, embracing AI, and rethinking their tech stacks to stay competitive. The 2026 programmatic benchmarks confirm a market in lift-off. Data shows that 75% of marketers expect budgets to rise in 2026, and 84% report stronger year-over-year performance.

Yet beneath this optimism lies a widening maturity gap between those simply keeping pace and those pulling ahead. Our research shows that top performers consistently excel in five areas: unifying fragmented workflows, consolidating their tech stacks, adopting AI where it delivers immediate impact, investing earlier in emerging channels, and redefining performance around attention and creative quality.

This report highlights the trends in data, AI, and analytics to watch for in 2026, based on a survey of data and technology enterprise leaders. Large enterprises have invested heavily in modernizing analytics and preparing for AI at scale. Yet despite this sizeable financial outlay, fragmentation is rampant and the execution gap is wide. Leaders understand that the path forward must include semantic consistency, governed AI, and portable data foundations. 

Your customers move fluidly between online discovery, in-store browsing, digital comparison, and physical purchase, often within the same decision cycle. Learn how to bring audience-led thinking into your omnichannel strategy and build a clearer, more connected view of your customers. 

What’s inside the guide

A clear breakdown of the modern omnichannel customer See how shoppers move between digital and physical environments and what actually drives decisions at each step.

When every second counts during peak season, manual supplier onboarding and poor product data quality can cost you conversions. New research shows that 40% of executives identify data synchronisation issues as critical barriers to competitive performance, with the impact felt most acutely during high-stakes holiday periods.

What you’ll discover:

Why slow supplier onboarding directly threatens assortment sustainability and revenue

Each day, shoppers create enormous amounts of data about themselves, their habits, and their preferences. As a result, supply chains (if leveraged properly) can virtually “talk” to retailers, manufacturers, and shippers.

But none of that data becomes actionable if retailers and their partners can’t get that data to tell a meaningful story. This research aims to find out how well retailers – and their trading partners – are able to convert this data into insight.

Whether third-party cookies finally crumble, they are creating compliance headaches—and strategic blind spots—for publishers and marketers. As Bettina Lippisch, Omeda’s VP of Privacy and Data Governance, pointed out during her talk at OX8, cookies are more than tech—they’re potentially capturing a sharing personal data of your site visitors. And the laws are catching up. 

“Cookies collect PII. What you looked at, where you went, how long you were there, where you logged in from—it’s all data. And it’s all subject to the same rules.” 

Understanding your customers is essential for building strong relationships and achieving lasting growth. It’s not just beneficial; it’s fundamental. Building that coveted 360-degree customer view, however, requires a solid foundation. It demands that you master several critical facets of data, insight and action. 

Let’s explore the seven pillars of a comprehensive C360, asking the crucial questions that lead to a complete and actionable customer picture.

“Never be the same again” is 100% a term we would use for brand-customer relationships in the age of AI. New operational models, new types of buyer’s journeys, simplified visual search, and brands being cut out of their own marketing funnels are just some of the fundamental ways Gen AI, voice assistants, chatbots, and AI agents have changed the game forever.

In this article, we’ll dive into 5 significant changes brought on by AI, how they add to the overall customer experience, and whether or not you should rethink your marketing strategy and daily behind-the-scenes operations. Spoiler alert: You definitely should.