Beyond AI: How HK brands can win the creative race in 2026

The impact of Generative AI on the creative industry is here to stay. With 74% of marketers expressing excitement about GenAI, the focus now shifts to applying it where it truly matters. For CMOs, that means adopting a test-and-learn approach to ensure their creative not only captures attention but also evokes emotion and drives purchase intent.

According to Kantar's 2026 Marketing Trends: creativity, inclusivity and growth through targeted technology, achieving this requires high-quality, trained datasets to measure creative effectiveness—paired with the human touch needed to ensure authenticity.

But the future of creativity isn't just about AI. Looking ahead to 2026, a net 61% of marketers plan to increase investment in creator content, intensifying the need to demonstrate both ROI and long-term brand-building impact. As coherent, cross-channel ideas are now 2.5 times more important to campaign success than they were a decade ago, the disconnect is clear: only 27% of creator content is strongly associated with the brand.

To succeed in 2026, brands must move beyond isolated creator collaborations and embrace long-term creative platforms that align brand storytelling with creator-led content in a meaningful way.

Here’s a look at the creative trends shaping the year ahead, as shared by industry leaders in conversation with MARKETING-INTERACTIVE.

Rudi Leung, founder and director, Hungry Digital  

2026 won’t belong to the noisiest brand in the room. It will belong to those who make people feel something relevant. 

The next chapter won’t be driven by technology alone—it will be driven by culture. Gen Z and Gen Alpha are asking better questions. They’re not looking to be targeted. They’re looking to belong. To believe. 

At its best, advertising doesn’t sell—it connects. Our job now isn’t just to communicate, but to contribute. 

AI will enhance the craft, no doubt. But if we forget the role of human judgment, instinct, and taste, we’ll be left with content, not creativity. 

The Greater Bay Area, alongside the rising influence of the new Hong Kongers, represents a major growth frontier. Influence here flows fast—through creators, celebrities, media, and grassroots voices. The brands that succeed will be the ones that embed themselves in this cultural current, not hover above it. 

Our focus for 2026? Stay creatively restless. Stay relevant. Stay Hungry. But above all—stay honest. 

Because in a world racing toward efficiency, the true luxury is originality—with soul. 

Jacqueline Yeung-Lam, managing director, Leo Hong Kong and Prodigious Hong Kong 

While AI is undoubtedly reshaping our industry, the bigger wave is how creative agencies are evolving beyond pure creativity to become partners in business transformation. As Publicis Groupe Hong Kong CEO Tom Kao often reminds us, we're not here to only provide creative solutions but creative commercial solutions. 

That's also why our clients increasingly look to us for solutions that integrate creativity with commerce, data, and technology. The growing power of experiences, from immersive brand ecosystems to connected customer journeys, will redefine how brands build relevance and loyalty. Creativity will remain the spark, but its true value lies in orchestrating transformation across the entire business. 

In 2026, our focus will be on technologies that enable connected creativity at scale. This includes platforms that unify identity and data, tools that enhance influencer marketing effectiveness, and experience‑driven technologies that bridge physical and digital touchpoints. We’re prioritising solutions that allow us to design personalised, measurable experiences, from connected commerce to dynamic content ecosystems, ensuring creativity delivers tangible business outcomes. 

Publicis Groupe’s investments in influencer marketing and connected identity will pay dividends in 2026. These are not just line items; they are strategic enablers that allow Leo Hong Kong to deliver measurable impact for clients. By investing in identity‑driven solutions, we can help brands build stronger connections with consumers, while influencer ecosystems allow us to amplify creativity in culturally relevant ways. This ensures every dollar spent is tied to growth and transformation.    

Our single most important focus in 2026 will be creativity as a driver of transformation. At Leo Hong Kong, we believe creativity is not only about campaigns, it’s about reshaping how brands engage, how businesses grow, and how experiences connect people. By combining creativity with data, identity, and technology, we aim to help clients move from communication to transformation, ensuring their brands remain future‑ready and culturally resonant. 

Sherman Yeung, managing director, Ogilvy Advertising HK 

Creativity itself is expanding. Agencies are moving into process design, experience architecture, and service innovation—areas where creative thinking directly shapes operations and delivers measurable growth. True industry leaders must now understand platforms, media mechanics, and business models as fluently as storytelling, because clients demand direct connections to growth—not just reach or awareness. 

AI has become the creative language of our industry. We’re moving past the era where creative execution was gated by specialist tools and roles—such as art directors confined to PSD files. Today, thanks to advanced multi-modal AI systems, every team member can contribute to shaping brand stories across text, vision, and data. But we recognise that craft matters: while technology lowers barriers, creative discernment and strategic intuition remain essential. Democratisation of tools does not mean every idea is equal; our focus is on enabling more voices to contribute, guided by experienced creative leaders who blend pattern recognition, insight, and the strategic discipline needed to deliver great work.  

Proving that transformation actually delivers outcomes—not just promising it. Clients seek for clarity, accountability, and results. For us, that means shifting from sentiment metrics to business impact and being explicit about how creativity, technology, and operations work together to drive performance. It also means building teams who are as comfortable with commercial logic as they are with creative craft, and simplifying our offerings so clients are clear on what we deliver and how it creates value. 

Jarvis Wong, partner, Omelette Digital  

AI is quickly shifting from a buzzword to a baseline expectation. Mastery of key AI tools will soon be essential for everyday productivity, even if we’re still a few years away from AI consistently delivering true, client-ready final outputs.  

At the same time, the pendulum is swinging back toward genuine, in-person connection. We’ve seen this firsthand through the overwhelming responses to our recent activations for La Mer, Uber, and Oriental Watch Company. Physical experiences are making a strong return, prompting brands to rebalance their presence—from purely virtual touchpoints to richer, more immersive IRL engagements. For major retail marketplaces, this hybrid approach will become even more crucial as a complement to pure e-commerce.  

At Omelette Digital, we’re approaching our 2026 budgeting with a deliberate, almost old-school portfolio mindset:  

• Strengthening investment in upstream ideation, especially rapid storyboard development, to help clients visualise concepts earlier and with greater clarity.  

• Continuing to invest deeply in high-impact talent, because the human side of creativity remains truly irreplaceable.  

Ultimately, our business isn’t about selling products — it’s about selling creative thinking. And while creativity is powerful, it can also be demanding. That’s why we’re equipping our team with foundational knowledge of key AI tools as productivity enablers, helping them work smarter, stay agile, and preserve more of their energy for the high-value creative work that makes the difference. 

Jay Ng, director, SO DON’T BORE  

AI is indisputably shaking up the creative world, just peek at the industry’s growing gallery of AI-generated ads, each slicker and faster to market than the last. But as robots churn out content, the real treasure is becoming unmistakable: genuine human insight, emotion, and imagination.  

At SO DON'T BORE, AI isn’t our shortcut to a cheaper campaign. It’s more like a camera lens, to bring ideas into sharper focus, but it’s the creative eye behind the lens that makes the work memorable. If AI doesn’t make the idea sharper, richer or more unexpected, it’s not earning its spot in our process.  

Advertising has always been about ideas that stand out. In 2026, amidst a sea of AI-generated ads, we’ll stick to making work the hard way: the human way, complete with real-world obsessions, crafted detail, and a stubborn refusal to bore. 

Maggie Wong, CEO, VML Hong Kong 

The creative industry is set to experience a deepening integration of human first creativity and AI-powered technology, fostering a powerful partnership that will shape its next major wave of change. Imagine a world where our unique human qualities – our empathy, vision and ethical compass – is celebrated more than ever.  

At the same time, cutting-edge AI and smart automation will handle the heavy lifting, making creative processes smoother, boosting what we can achieve, and opening doors to exciting new forms of expression. This isn't about one replacing the other; it's about finding a brilliant balance. Humans will remain the innovative leaders, infusing projects with genuine emotion, purpose and meaning. Meanwhile, AI will act as the ultimate enabler, providing the efficiency, scale and processing power to bring bold, human-led ideas to life on an unprecedented scale. 

As we move forward, my focus will be on driving AI enablement and transformation across our teams, embedding AI into our operations to elevate the quality and value of the services we offer. But even as we embrace this new way of working, we must continue to celebrate the irreplaceable spark of human creativity. Together, human first creativity and AI will unlock limitless possibilities. 

Related articles:

What's next for PR? Hong Kong industry players on the new trust equation
AI and nano influencers: How can industry players level up creativity in 2025?