Happy Final Sunday of 2025, Everyone!

I hope you all had a wonderful Christmas / Hanukkah / Kwanza filled with laughs, family and friends….or just some well-deserved peace and quiet. It’s difficult to believe, but this is the 52nd and final issue of 2025. The year that (at times) felt like it would never end is drawing to a close.

But, before celebrating the ball dropping, the calendar changing and every goal/target resetting to 0, I took some time to reflect on 2025 - the good, the bad and the weird. I went back and reviewed the predictions I made almost a year ago, just to see how they’ve turned out (at least, so far). Every time I write these lists, my goal is twofold: (1) be right (obviously) and (2) do so by having a solid underlying process/rationale.

This year, instead of self-assessing, I took a different route: I asked ChatGPT + Gemini to assess whether each prediction made in last year’s article was correct or incorrect. Surprisingly, the results came back wildly positive: 24 out of 25 right. Not too shabby.

What I’m most proud of isn't just the macro stuff - though calling the "soft landing" and exactly 3 Fed rate cuts was nice (both for bragging points and the portfolio) – It’s the specific marketing predictions that played out exactly as written:

• AppLovin: I predicted it would quickly establish itself as a viable channel (and take significant market share). It did.
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• YouTube: I called it becoming the "safe haven" where ad dollars would go amidst the TikTok ownership/ban crisis. That’s almost exactly what happened - and it didn’t hurt that more marketers started realizing YouTube is still the most under-valued impression on the web today.
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• Founder-Led Marketing: My overarching thesis has been that the companies that win will be the ones where the founder (or similarly-situated executive) truly owns communications and is willing to be in front, advocating for the organization. Put another way: the companies that embrace founder-led marketing will dominate those that default to milquetoast brand communications.

Trying to beat 24/25 is a high bar to clear, but I’ve been doing a lot of reflecting over the break, and I think the themes for 2026 are already becoming clear.

So, without any further ado, here is Part 1 of my predictions for the year ahead:

1. Ads in AIO (AI Overviews) Go Mainstream

For the last 18 months, AI Search (like Google's AI Overviews and AI Mode) have largely functioned as a SERP enhancement. Over the past year, the rates at which these features are deployed has increased markedly - from as low as 15% at the beginning of the year to 53% in November 2025. It’s clear Google sees both the value in integrating AI into standard search AND the revenue opportunity this presents.

Well, 2026 is the year AI SERP features become revenue engines for both Google AND brands.

Ad units will be integrated natively into these AI answers, specifically via "Shopping Tiles" (for eCommerce -adjacent searches) and "Sponsored Links" (for everything else), all embedded directly in the AIO.

Here is why this is a big deal: Historically, Google Ads monetized "commercial intent" (e.g., buy nike shoes) and “navigational intent” (e.g., Nike shoes). AIOs allow Google to monetize "informational intent" (e.g., best running shoes for flat feet). The problem? The vast majority of queries are informational! Monetizing AI overviews unlocks (potentially) trillions more search ad units every single year – that’s both a lot of potential revenue for Google (yes, I’m still long Google) and a lot of potential revenue for brands that can navigate the opportunity:

The data is already validating this shift.

In Google’s Q2 2025 Earnings Call, Sundar Pichai explicitly confirmed that AI Overviews are driving an increase in overall search usage and (crucially) a higher volume of commercial queries. Why? Because the user feels the product was "recommended" by the AI rather than "sold" by an advertiser.

My guess is twofold: (1) most advertisers are not budgeting for this and will find themselves overwhelmed by the organizations that are and (2) ad budgets will start flooding back to Google as 2026 progresses.

2. Marketers Shift Back to the "Big Screen"

Speaking of pendulums swinging back: I think the big screen is due for a big comeback. 2026 is the year marketers will see a significant budget migration toward Roku, CTV and linear TV, with total advertising investment projected to eclipse a record $38 billion in 2026.

My logic here is straightforward: the "Second Screen" (mobile) is saturated. The "First Screen" (TV) offers better stronger metrics, (arguably) better ad units (there’s only one ad at a time!) and - most importantly - the measurement infrastructure to back it up.

There are (in my view) 4 reasons why this shift is taking place:

1. CPM Arbitrage: The flood of money moving out of traditional linear TV has finally caught up with ad networks. We have reached a point where big screen impressions are cheaper than social CPMs.
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2. AI Upscaling: The creative barrier to entry is gone. AI video upscaling now allows brands to take traditional "social" assets (even vertical video) and remaster them for 4K TV screens without losing quality and without making massive creative investments. The Big Screen is more accessible than ever before.
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3. The Prestige: This feels silly, but the effect is real (especially among older consumers who tend to have lots of money) - older consumers tend to associate TV ads with established, successful brands (primarily because - until this point - those were the only brands that could afford it).
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4. Democratized Measurement: Measurement has finally caught up. It is no longer just for the Fortune 500; AI-powered automated Marketing Mix Modeling (aMMM) tools have made it economical for smaller advertisers to calculate incrementality of TV budgets in single markets, often with less than $250k per month in spend. Less than a decade ago, the cost to merely run a MMM was $250k+.

And finally: TV is no longer just an awareness play. Tools like Roku Action Ads allow a user who has just been served an ad for a blender to press "OK" on their remote and instantly receive a checkout link via SMS. TV is becoming a performance channel, and the smart money is moving there.

3. The Line Between AI and Real Disappears

We are past the "Uncanny Valley." Tools like Nano Banana (seriously…it’s scarily good) have shown us that AI video is quickly surpassing novelty status, rapidly approaching indistinguishable from reality. In 2024, you could spot AI video because the physics were off (hands morphing, gravity failing). In 2026, Nano Banana has "solved" physics. You can now generate a 30-second commercial that looks like it was shot on an Arri Alexa or RED KOMODO for (effectively) $20/mo.

But this goes far beyond just high-definition video clips. These tools are already here, and they are becoming sophisticated enough to replace entire production processes/workstreams - something I’ve seen first-hand as our AI initiatives have saved over 6,800 hours of time in just the last 6 months - which doesn’t include the hundreds of hours it’s saved my social team in chopping up whiteboard videos and the Marketing Uncensored podcast (shameless plug: we’re back for Season 2 in January!).

We are seeing the rise of features that solve the biggest headaches for product marketers: character consistency, product shot integration, and seamless video stitching. It means you can take a static image of your product, drop it into a scene, and have the AI render it with perfect lighting and physics, all while maintaining a consistent brand spokesperson across fifty different cuts. We aren't waiting for the future; the tech is live, it works, and it’s about to get a whole lot more sophisticated.

4. Incrementality Measurement Goes Mainstream

For years, "Attribution" was the buzzword. In 2026, it will be replaced by "Incrementality."

Over the past year, some of us have been quietly talking about platforms like Haus, that are leading the charge and bringing incrementality - traditionally reserved for brands with massive ($10M+) budgets and teams of data scientists - to the advertising masses. I think those conversations are going to get a lot louder and a lot more public in 2026, as more brands finally catch on that (1) attribution was always bullshit and (2) aMMMs are far better.

Here is why the shift to a robust standalone product is the critical piece of this prediction:

• The "Conflict of Interest" Problem: Most ad platforms (and even some attribution tools) operate on a model where they have a vested interest in showing a positive result so you keep spending. Relying on an ad platform’s built-in lift tool is like letting a student grade their own test. A standalone platform acts as an impartial auditor - it doesn't care if you spend more or less; it only cares about the truth.
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• Feature vs. Product: Many attribution platforms are scrambling to add "incrementality" as a checkbox feature. Usually, this is just modeled data (educated guesses based on algorithmic predictions). True standalone platforms run scientific holdout tests (geo-lift, exclusion groups).
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• CFO-Ready Data: Attribution answers the question, "Who gets the credit?" Incrementality answers the question, "Did this actually generate net-new customers/revenue?" In an economy where efficiency is king, finance teams don’t care about ROAS (which can be manipulated); they care about lift.

Brands will stop asking "Did this ad get a click?" and start asking "Would this sale have happened without this ad?" This will be one of the biggest mindset shifts for marketers in 2026 - and the ones who will will be the ones who obsess about making ads that drive incremental sales/subscriptions/leads/revenue.

Bonus: the brands that make this switch will realize that 20-30% of their "best performing" spend was cannibalizing organic sales - and they’ll reinvest that cash into growth that is incremental.

5. Old School Ads Make a Resurgence

This is one that will make Rabah (if he even reads this) smile: I think polished, Ogilvy-style advertising is going to come back in 2026.

Now, this isn’t because the advertising industry gets all nostalgic, but rather because consumers/audiences are tired. The default for the past 36+ months has been TikTok-ified creative. Fast hooks. Quick cuts. Soundbites. Snippets. “Just ship it and test it.” And to be fair, it has worked. But there comes a point where it will not work any longer - and we’re approaching that point.

I’ve always said that surplus value decreases with adoption. Well, when the big legacy brands are pumping out TikTok-ified creatives, you can be pretty sure the late majority has arrived – which means the incremental gain from doing a thing is approaching zero.

When every brand is pushing ads that look like a piece of influencer content, it all becomes noise. Audiences catch on. It stops feeling natural, native and authentic, and it starts feeling like a template. At that point, the thing that stands out is the thing that feels intentional. Polish, done right, is intention made visible.

Take Chevy’s recent "Memory Lane" commercial as the blueprint. It's not selling features; it sold a feeling. It was pure storytelling that broke through the noise because it felt human in a feed full of noise.

You’ll see this swing back hardest in categories where trust matters: Finance. Healthcare. Legal. Home services. In uncertain markets, people want signals of stability. A well-made ad, with a clear proposition and proof, quietly communicates that the company is serious and likely to be around in two (or twenty) years.

That’s the irony of 2026 creative: as AI plays a progressively larger role in creative, it’ll be the brands that leverage it to become more human that win. AI crushes the cost of production; humans with real perspective, real spine and real taste ensure the production is worth making. In an AI-driven creative world, the most human brands win.

6. CPM Inflation Bifurcates

Traditionally, when CPMs go up, marketers treat it like inflation: a cost pressure felt everywhere. In 2026, this changes. My prediction is that CPMs will stop being just a cost metric and start acting as a proxy for attention and placement quality.

We are going to see a "K-Shaped" split in the market. "Junk inventory" (Made-for-Advertising sites, click-bait farms) will see prices crater, while high-attention, high-quality placements will command premium pricing. Cheap will get cheaper; quality will get expensive.

The clearest example of this is the Google Display Network (GDN). While costs for high-impact formats like CTV or YouTube Select are climbing, open-web display CPMs remain suspiciously flat (or are even dropping). Why? Because the market has priced in the lack of attention. Buying cheap inventory isn't "efficient" anymore; it’s largely invisible. You might get a $1.50 CPM on a sidebar banner, but if it takes 10,000 impressions to get one second of actual human attention, it is actually the most expensive media you can buy.

This marks a fundamental shift in how we buy media. For the last decade, the goal was "reach" - casting the widest net for the lowest cost.

In 2026, the alpha moves to placement curation.

Media buyers will need to stop acting like stock traders (chasing the lowest price) and start acting like art curators (selecting the best environments). Success won't come from finding the cheapest CPM; it will come from ruthlessly filtering out the "junk" to ensure your brand only appears where real humans are actually looking. The days of "set it and forget it" programmatic buying are over; active inclusion lists are the new standard.

7. Marketing Teams Get More Integrated

The default model for marketing is moving toward smaller teams and smaller, more integrated agencies.

The days of a mid-sized brand managing 5+ specialized agencies - one for SEO, one for PPC, one for Creative, one for PR - are drawing to a close. Why? Because the "Specialist Era" created a massive coordination tax. It turned the CMO into a project manager instead of a strategist, and it turned brand strategy into a game of telephone where the message got garbled between the "TikTok Agency" and the "Email Team."

Brands are realizing 2 critical truths:

1. Cohesiveness > Specialization: A unified voice across 3 channels performs better than 5 disjointed-but-optimized-perfectly-for-the-platform ones.
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2. Speed Wins: It is infinitely easier to move fast when you aren't waiting for 3 different external partners to get their stuff together.

The "Golden Model" for 2026 is a small, talented in-house team supported by a single, integrated, full-service partner.

Historically, the knock on full-service agencies was "jack of all trades, master of none." AI changes this. It allows integrated teams to execute technical tasks at an elite level without needing a siloed department for each.

We are entering the era of the "Elite Generalist."

This is a shift away from the "Assembly Line" model of marketing (where an idea passes through 5 layers of bureaucracy on its way from genuinely clever to perfectly adequate). In 2026, organizations will flatten. The winners will be the brands that empower small, agile squads to make decisions and ship.

In a world where AI levels the playing field on quality, speed becomes the core differentiator. The brands that win will be the ones that can break things, fix them and ship again before their competitors have even finished scheduling the kickoff meeting.

8. Brand & Storytelling Become Central to Growth

This is self-explanatory, but critical. As algorithms automate the "math" of media buying, the lever for performance moves back to the "magic" of the message. Growth in 2026 won’t come from silly growth hacks or platform exploits; it will come from having a story that people actually want to hear.

2026 marketing becomes a race to be more human while embracing AI.

The central paradox of 2026 is this: To win in an AI-first world, you must become aggressively human.

As AI models commoditize "competence" - giving every competitor the ability to write decent copy, generate clean images and optimize bids - the baseline for quality has been raised, but the ceiling for differentiation has been lowered. This is the “explosion of mid” I talked about in those AI issues: when every brand sounds "professional" and "optimized”, the risk becomes drowning in a sea of sameness.

The winners will be the brands that use AI to handle the logistics so they can double down on making real, human connections. This means embracing a distinct point of view, specific storytelling and the strategic flaw that proves a real person is behind the message. In a feed dominated by synthetic perfection, raw humanity is the only un-hackable moat.

Aside: one inevitable consequence of this is that more brands will become more overtly polarizing – because marketers are finally coming to the realization that the Middle is the worst place to be. I expect to see more brands take stands - not necessarily political, but purposeful.

9. The Finance-Marketing Gap Closes

For top-performing brands, the wall between the CFO and the CMO is coming down. Having a CRO or CFO intimately involved with marketing operations becomes the norm. This is directly tied to the shift toward incrementality (Prediction #4). As marketing data (finally) begins to live up to the decades of promises & becomes financially stable, finance teams are willing to get in the trenches.

10. Brands Incubate Their Own Influencers

Finally: 2026 will see more brands move away from renting influencers and start incubating their own. There are plenty of reasons for this, but it comes down to 4 big ones:

• Cost-Effective: it’s so much cheaper for brands to develop their own influencers than it is to continually “rent” a set of them - especially when the brand has already invested so much in understanding a specific target market.
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• Offense + Defense: having multiple brand-developed influencers allows for more flexibility in content + deployment. while a traditional “influencer” might not be willing to focus on certain elements of your product/service, or might be unwilling to criticize a competitor, those same limitations don’t apply to brand-developed influencers.
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• Recruitment: I genuinely think one of the greatest recruiting advantages a company can have in today’s market (especially for GenZ and soon-to-be Gen Alpha) is the infrastructure to build personal brands. I’ve seen it first-hand - the willingness to help prospective employees build a platform is a MASSIVE differentiator. If you want elite talent, this is one of the easiest ways to get more of it.
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• Brand Protection: finally - one of the best advantages is that it de-risks the transaction for the brand because you know who’s behind it. You’ve done your due diligence on your hire. You know the person behind the account.

I wrote a long article about this trend over a year ago - if you’re curious, it’s worth a read.

I’ll be back in 2026 (don’t you just hate that joke?) with Part 2 (Predictions 11-25).

I hope you all have a wonderful end to 2025 – enjoy the last few days of peace and quiet, spend some time with your loved ones, family or just yourself, and get ready for the year ahead!

Cheers,

Sam

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