Omnicom’s AI emphasis is raising talent questions, as sparse mentions of people highlight layoffs and a broader industry tilt toward automation and cost efficiency.

CMOs are expanding their mandate beyond acquisition to include customer experience (CX) as a structural growth lever. But silos, fragmented data, and rushed AI adoption threaten retention. Alignment now determines whether CX builds loyalty or fuels churn.

This FAQ covers how consumers and marketers are adapting to generative AI, the risks that accompany its growth, and what strategies brands should prioritize in 2026.

LinkedIn and OpenAI build AI hiring platforms, threatening staffing firms’ 15% to 30% markups.

This FAQ addresses how AI fits into customer experience strategy in 2026.

US B2B digital ad spending reached just over $20 billion in 2025, per EMARKETER, as brands compete for attention across an increasingly fragmented channel mix.

Retail returns have quietly become one of the most expensive, complex, and customer-sensitive parts of commerce.

As commerce media ad spend shifts, clear gaps emerge in buyer maturity and execution. From setup friction to system-level optimization, spend levels signal today’s constraints and what it takes to unlock scalable growth.

US B2B ecommerce continues to expand as it becomes a default buying channel. But slower growth, operational gaps, and marketplace momentum are reshaping where value is created and how sellers compete.

This FAQ examines the current state of drone delivery, why scaling has proven difficult, and what retail strategists should consider before making investment decisions.

Pinterest shifts to yield; its leadership change reinforces focus on performance, commerce, and higher ARPU.

Ad agencies face AI disruption, consolidation, in-housing, and economic pressure. Legacy models are cracking as clients automate more work, forcing agencies to rethink their business strategies—or risk falling behind.

Spotify outlines how AI, automation, and immersive experiences will reshape how brands connect with consumers in 2026.

Agentic AI is expanding across ad platforms; CES reveals acceleration in autonomous planning and optimization, even as many marketers hesitate to trust full automation.

AI will reshape premium video buying—and NBCUniversal’s proof-of-concept shows agentic systems can unify planning and optimization across linear and streaming in seconds.

Our analysts (or “bakers”) will compete in a Great British Bake Off–style episode, discussing how new standards will unlock agentic ad buying and selling, and how (and why) YouTube will benefit most from the surge in video podcasts. Join Senior Director of Podcasts and host Marcus Johnson, along with Senior Analyst Ross Benes and Principal Analyst Yory Wurmser. Listen everywhere, and watch on YouTube and Spotify.

Email’s reliability is no longer enough to offset rising consumer expectations. AI accelerates production and enhances relevance, while engagement, trust, and tougher inbox rules push marketers to rethink how they will use the channel in 2026.

Amazon is recalibrating its relationship with the agencies and adtech firms that helped build its retail-media dominance. While Amazon insists agencies remain central, many intermediaries say rising data costs and tool duplication echo earlier platform playbooks from Google and Meta—centralize strengths, limit external dependencies, and scale in-house automation. The result is a more controlled, AI-driven ecosystem that may reduce tooling diversity while boosting Amazon’s own ad stack. For marketers, the challenge will be balancing Amazon’s convenience and scale with the flexibility, transparency, and customization offered by independent partners.

On today’s EMARKETER Miniseries—AI-Driven Media Management—we explore how to break down the media manager role into workflows that can be automated or augmented by agentic AI, what agencies misunderstand about AI, and which agency tasks are ripest to hand off to AI right now. EMARKETER Senior Director of Content Jeremy Goldman speaks with Adam Epstein, co-founder and CEO of Gigi. Listen everywhere you find podcasts, and watch on YouTube and Spotify.

While commerce media networks expand, retailers can take advantage of the efficiencies and measurement capabilities that they can provide.Retail media networks alone are expected to claim one-fifth of US digital ad spending by 2029, according to EMARKETER’s September forecast.