In December 2021, Insider Intelligence analysts published their top five retail trends for 2022, detailing our predictions for the upcoming year. But 2022 has been anything but predictable. In this Analyst Take, we revisit those trends to find out what’s changed, what’s stayed the same, and how we’re thinking about five of retail's biggest trends amid this era of uncertainty.

Just 7% of US consumers who exercise expect to work out entirely at a gym or studio for the next year. By comparison, 42% plan to exercise only at home, while the rest anticipate using some combination of the two.

Around the world, some 60% of consumer interactions with companies take place online. This figure has risen significantly since the onset of the pandemic, up from about 40% in 2019.

The US insurance industry will top $12 billion in digital ad spending this year, up 15.0% from 2021. Outlays will continue to increase by double-digit rates over the next couple of years, surpassing $15 billion in 2024.

This year, 120.0 million US adults will book travel via digital channels. While that figure is up 29.7 million from 2020’s pandemic low, it’s 6.2 million fewer digital travel bookers than in 2019.

Digital audio has been taking up more than an hour per day of US adults’ time since 2016, and 2022 will be another year of solid growth. They will consume an additional 3 minutes per day of digital audio this year, to reach 1:40. Among active digital audio listeners, the daily figure will be a robust 2:17.

Over the course of 2021, the Chinese government promulgated two groundbreaking laws governing the country’s digital economy. The Data Security Law (DSL) and the Personal Information Protection Law (PIPL) were introduced throughout H1 and implemented in H2.

Is the shine off nonfungible tokens (NFTs)? As of May, just 2% of US adults surveyed have invested in NFTs and like them, while another 4% have invested but aren’t happy about it. The 64% majority said they have no investment or interest in these assets, up from 56% in October 2021.

Though video gaming has been around for decades, it was the entertainment of choice for many during the pandemic.

Capital One was the most downloaded US banking app between January and April 2022, with 5.0 million net new installations. Digital-only contender Chime took the No. 2 spot, with 4.7 million, while Chase came in third, with 4.1 million net new installs.

Search advertising is the oldest form of digital promotion, with roots in Google’s rise during the late 1990s. Search engine optimization (SEO) and search engine marketing (SEM) were disciplines that brought legitimacy to digital marketing departments. The sustained performance of search to this day is a big part of why Google remains such a powerful digital ad platform.

Upfront spending is flowing toward streaming services. Upfront CTV ad spending will grow by 34.6% to $6.41 billion this year. For context, that’s about how much we had predicted in our inaugural forecast would be spent on total CTV advertising in 2019.

The average US adult will spend more time watching digital video than TV in 2024, marking a victory for connected viewing in the streaming revolution. Daily time spent with TV will fall below 3 hours next year, down more than 1 hour, 30 minutes over the course of a decade.

While traditional TV ad spending will struggle for growth in the coming years, digital video will not. A portion of digital video spend will go to the nascent CTV space, but traditional broadcasters are also developing their own streaming services (with BVOD ad spend rising at a far faster rate than traditional TV spend). Overall, the advertising opportunity for CTV remains small.

Much of the money exiting linear TV won’t go very far, partly because many Americans are shifting their behavior from one content source to another while using the same device.

Brand marketers worldwide are most confident in their ability to measure return on investment (ROI) in social media marketing—64% are either extremely or very confident in this. Video online and mobile was the No. 2 most effective platform for measuring ROI (59%), while search and display tied for No. 3 (54%).

Rising costs and economic uncertainty are contributing to a reconsideration of streaming’s future. Streaming services are under pressure to attract consumers and retain them, all while inching toward profitability.

US average time spent with digital will hit 8 hours and 14 minutes per day in 2022 after first crossing the 8-hour mark last year. That 1.9% increase isn't as big as in past pandemic years, but it's still eating up a bigger share of overall time spent with media.

The recent influx of premium streaming services is changing the way people access movies and TV shows. In the US, 18% of US paid video subscribers purchase just one streaming service, down 17 percentage points from 2019. By contrast, 35% currently pay for four or more services, up 24 percentage points from three years ago.