For marketers, millennials represent high engagement across social platforms and elevated price sensitivity amid cost-of-living pressures.

Given the economic climate, value will remain top-of-mind for most consumers through this year. And retailers can tailor loyalty programs and other promotions to answer some economic challenges caused by tariffs and rising prices.

Streaming’s new reality is testing viewers as rising prices, heavier ad loads, and uneven experiences push them to reassess what they keep. Value, tolerance, and convenience now drive the fight for attention.

Accenture announced it will roll out ChatGPT Enterprise to tens of thousands of employees for internal workflows and client-facing products, per Reuters. The move follows Deloitte adopting a similar expansion—deploying Anthropic’s Claude to more than 470,000 employees across 150 countries. With big consultancies adopting the same AI agent playbook, the risk of AI-driven sameness grows. Companies seeking stricter compliance and tighter risk management might benefit from Accenture’s and Deloitte’s agentic offerings, even as a starting point toward longer-term, more independent agentic adoption.

Fintechs, big tech, and payment players are using genAI to redefine finance. To compete, banks must pair strategic genAI investment with hyper-personalization and human support to earn customer trust and loyalty.

The P&C insurance sector is pivoting from being driven by premium-driven growth to focusing on operational discipline and digital transformation, according to a Deloitte report. To succeed in 2026 and beyond, insurers should optimize their operations, partner effectively to upgrade their technology, and bring innovative products and services to market–either on their own or working with insurtechs.

Efficiency, ROI, and AI integration are now driving B2B martech buying decisions. Marketers are consolidating stacks, prioritizing automation, and investing in tools that deliver measurable performance gains.

The findings: Deloitte’s July 2025 ConsumerSignals report gives us a glimpse into US banking customers’ current stressors and banks’ upcoming challenges. We saw that: deposits are about to drop, housing prices stress every generation, consumers are curbing their splurging, and they’re more worried than they were last year. Our take: Though US banking customers are facing a number of stressors, they’re demonstrating resilience and savvy that has helped them pull through. That resilience could be informed by advice from financial experts they trust, including at their FIs.

The trend: Gen Z is opting out of both traditional pay TV and ad-supported streaming tiers, signaling deeper changes in viewing behavior. Just 42% of Gen Z subscribers use ad-supported SVOD, while less than half of all US households now maintain a pay TV subscription. Our take: Streaming’s future depends on reaching the next generation, but current models—especially ad-supported tiers—aren’t meeting Gen Z where they are. With only 1.3 hours of streaming and 0.8 hours of traditional TV per day, Gen Z prefers social video, gaming, and music. To stay relevant, platforms must prioritize native formats, interactivity, and creator integration over legacy ad models.

The trend: Value-seeking behavior is on the rise, though not without some volatility, per Deloitte. Our take: Consumers’ growing focus on value doesn’t necessarily mean they want the cheapest option. In fact, up to 40% of how consumers evaluate value comes from nonprice factors, per a separate Deloitte study. That’s a critical distinction for brands. While it can be tempting to lean into discounts, a narrow focus on price cuts can hurt long-term brand equity. Brands that offer added value—through better quality, service, loyalty programs, or other innovations—are seeing stronger purchase intent and increasing consumer share.

The news: Ad quality has a big impact on whether gamers will stay in the game or walk away from a session. Over half (52%) of gamers in the US, the UK, Germany, and Japan would quit playing if they encountered multiple disruptive ad features, per Deloitte’s Quality Drives Value: A Look into Mobile Gaming Ads survey. Our take: Prioritizing features like rewards and skip options can help players feel in control and properly compensated for their time, helping mobile gamers to stay engaged, click through, and return. Poorly timed or deceptive ads, on the other hand, risk alienating gamers and increasing churn.

The in-sourcing wave puts financial pressure on consultants and risks stretching government teams thin.

Younger consumers increasingly prefer creator content over TV, film: A Deloitte study indicates that advertisers need to rethink their strategies to remain competitive.

A majority of US companies see strong returns from genAI, but AI mistakes, trust issues, and limited workforce access could stall broader adoption.

Despite growing adoption, poor data accuracy and unremarkable returns are limiting the success of genAI projects.

The traditional TV bundle will further decay as more live sports embrace streaming.

As companies like Google and Microsoft expand power-hungry AI models, there’s an opening for startups to provide sustainable data center solutions.

The role of the CMO has expanded far beyond traditional marketing expectations. Despite high expectations and many challenges, CMOs can find new opportunities to lead successful teams and drive business growth. Four CMOs share their perspectives for this report.

Consumers take a cautious approach to back-to-school shopping: To drive shoppers to spend, Macy’s revamped its Epic Threads brand, Kohl’s added Limited Too, and Old Navy offered cash back.

We expect back-to-school sales to rise 2.9%: While that’s a far cry from rates over the past two years, it is markedly higher than in 2019.