What marketers should watch in 2026: a year of intent, intelligence and reinvention

Strap in because in 2026, AI gets smarter and consumer expectations get sharper, writes Intender CEO Phil Ohren. To win, marketers have to do more than keep up.

Marketing is heading into its most interesting year in a long time. The rules we’ve lived by – grab attention, chase data, buy more – are falling apart, and something smarter is taking their place. We’re moving into a world where intent matters more than impressions, AI does the heavy lifting, and relevance actually means relevant. Here’s what to watch in 2026.

From awareness to action

In 2026, the pendulum swings from attention to intent. Marketers are no longer satisfied with passive impressions or ambiguous rich; they want provable, in-market intent. Platforms that can map, validate and activate real consumer intent will become core infrastructure, and CFOs will increasingly demand “verified intent” as a budget principle. Awareness isn’t dead, but waste is.

AI agents become new marketing team members

Multi-agent systems finally go mainstream in 2026. These agents plan by optimising and reporting, auditing each other and executing at speed. Marketers shift from doing the work to directing it, with AI handling the operational load.

Tech consolidation accelerates

Privacy pressure and tighter economics accelerate the collapse of fragmented adtech stacks. The winners are platforms built on intent signals rather than identity, capable of blending brand and performance measurement into one coherent system. Intent-first ecosystems – like Intender – are built for this new consolidation wave.

Search fragments, intent holds

Search is splintering across search generative experience (SGE), TikTok, AI assistants, marketplaces and vertical engines. But what sits underneath – the consumer intent graph – remains stable. People still need answers in-funnel. Marketers need a unified view that pulls these fragmented signals together, such as exploration tech and visualisation models.

Declared intent becomes a premium media signal

Consumers are waking up to the fact that their intent has value, and in 2026 they begin to express it deliberately. Consumer-controlled intent marketplaces will grow, and declared interest will replace intrusive targeting. In fact, declared-intent media will outperform traditional interruptive media formats.

Retargeting declines

Cookie-based retargeting fully erodes by 2026. What replaces it is smarter: semantic understanding, real-time context and predictive models that feel more human. Budgets shift away from identity-led strategies and toward intent-led targeting that understands what people need in the moment.

AI makes measurement more useful

Deterministic attribution can’t keep up with modern complexity. The new measurement model blends search-volume lift, causal modelling and unified intent data to show consumers move between awareness, intent and purchase. Intent metrics become the new brand-health indicators, and they’re far more actionable than channel-level ROAS.

Human creativity becomes the edge

As AI becomes more universal, output quality converges. The only true differentiator left is human creativity: ideas that surprise, move and resonate. AI extends creative range, but it can’t replicate emotional truth. Winning brands will pair AI’s scale with human storytelling.

Consumers demand relevancy

The backlash against intrusive advertising grows. Consumers reward brands that respect attention and respond only when interest is declared. Intent-first marketing reframes advertising from interruption to service. Relevance isn’t a nice-to-have – it becomes a trust signal.

Agencies evolve into engineering-led organisations

The agency of 2026 looks more like an engineering studio than a traditional service business. Proprietary tech, agent-based workflows and automation become the new differentiators. At Intender, our focus is on driving efficiency, insight and advantage in an AI-native world, with the help of our intent-first architecture.

So, are you ready?

The road ahead belongs to marketers who choose curiosity over comfort. With intent-first frameworks, smarter tech and a renewed focus on creativity, 2026 offers a rare chance to build something better: marketing that works harder, wastes less and resonates more. The opportunities are bigger than the challenges. And that’s something to get excited about.