With so much changing in the world of Marketing, driven mostly by AI but also by culture, behaviour and data, I’ve recently been exploring and investigating what the future holds for the sector. Here are my own personal predictions for 2026, and beyond.
Let’s talk about Generative Engine Optimisation (GEO), the next big thing that’s quietly reshaping how brands show up online. As more people use AI tools like ChatGPT or Google’s new AI Mode or AI Overviews to find answers, traditional SEO tactics aren’t enough anymore.
We’re no longer just writing for humans and algorithms: we’re now writing for AI models that summarise and recommend content. My team spent much of this year helping those models understand our brand’s expertise, so they surface it in their responses.
It meant shifting from keyword stuffing to creating content that’s genuinely useful, context-rich, and easy for AI to interpret. In a way, it’s taking us back to the heart of good marketing: clear storytelling and real value. With Bain & Co predicting traffic loss of at least 25% because of zero-click search results, it’s plain to me that GEO needs to be a priority to stay ahead of the game for 2026 and into the future.
Of course, Gen AI isn’t just changing how we reach audiences, it’s also transforming how marketing teams work behind the scenes. From drafting campaign briefs and analysing performance data to generating design concepts, AI tools are becoming a great productivity partner.
They can take care of the heavy lifting, freeing teams to focus on creativity and strategy. But it’s not all smooth sailing. Rely too heavily on AI, and you risk losing the human insight and originality that make great marketing great. The real opportunity lies in striking the right balance by using AI to amplify your team’s talent, not replace it.
The rise, fall, rise and fall of in person engagement
While face to face events have been a mainstay of marketing for decades, the COVID-19 pandemic certainly had an impact on their range and frequency. Just as we’ve seen a recovery in this field, with most regular events back to normal schedules, and new events popping up all the time, it seemed that face to face networking was here to stay.
That was until recent UK Government announcements around restrictions in attendance for civil servants. The Guardian reported in September 2025 that new guidance had been published ‘banning staff network meetings in working hours [...] making sure cross-government networks remained impartial [...] and a new requirement for senior managers to sign off events.’ Does this spell an end to networking events like conferences, lunches, dinners and receptions across the Civil Service? It’s not yet clear. But what is clear is that, in the government sector at least, we’re likely to see a reduction in such opportunities for engagement.
Marketing can’t operate in a silo. We need to be close to our sales teams, our consultants and in fact all employees. Here at Sopra Steria we’ve been building a Community of Advocates, working hard to connect with and enable teams from across the company to understand what we do, feed into our processes, and amplify our content with their networks.
Here at Sopra Steria we’ve just launched our Marketing Hub. It’s a SharePoint site for all employees to be able to easily access our reporting, collateral, case studies, best practice guides and training, as well as spotlights on our activity. It’s been really well received as increasing visibility of the successes we achieve, connecting to our people and upskilling all teams to become Marketing advocates. We’ve included profiles of team members, as well as videos of them explaining and celebrating our campaign successes.
We’re also taking the same principles into the external environment. We’ve adapted our video content to include more of our people, to show authenticity and bring our solutions to life. We’ve published bios of client-facing teams and those behind the scenes.
It’s still true that humans buy from humans.
This brings me onto my closing point.
As we look to 2026 and beyond, it’s clear that marketing will continue to evolve at pace, powered by AI, shaped by data, and influenced by cultural and behavioural shifts. But amidst all this transformation, one thing remains constant: the power of human connection.
Technology can help us move faster, work smarter, and reach further, but it can’t replace empathy, creativity or genuine understanding. The best marketers of the future will be those who use AI as a partner and not a substitute.
Because in the end, no matter how advanced our tools become, people still connect with people. While we can take advantage of tools and AI, we need to balance with human intuition and insight.