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Stream/Area:
-
Subject:
-
Paper ID:
IJSREM66095
Volume:
10 |
7 |
Jul 2026
Pages:
1-7
Publication Frequency:
Monthly (12 issues per year)
License:International Journal of Scientific Research in Engineering and Management follows the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 (CC BY 4.0) License, allowing free use and distribution with proper attribution.
Commerce
Multani Mal Modi College, Patiala.
The paper examines the major forces reshaping marketing practice in 2026, drawing on a structured review of industry research, consultancy reports, and trade publications released between late 2025 and mid-2026. The analysis identifies seven interlocking developments: the maturation of generative and agentic artificial intelligence from experimental use to routine deployment; a shift in emphasis from audience acquisition toward conversion and retention; the fragmentation of consumer attention across niche and AI-mediated channels; the accelerated adoption of first-party data strategies driven by privacy regulation and cookie deprecation; the convergence of content and commerce through retail media, connected television, and live shopping; a renewed premium on authentic, human-centered creative work amid growing synthetic content and misinformation; and the restructuring of marketing departments into flatter, outcome-oriented, human-AI hybrid teams. Findings suggest that while automation is absorbing much of the transactional and execution-level work in marketing, sustained competitive advantage in 2026 depends on strategic judgment, trustworthy data practices, and authentic brand storytelling that automated systems cannot fully replicate. The paper concludes that organizations able to combine AI-driven efficiency with human strategic oversight and measurable accountability are best positioned to convert these shifts into durable growth.
KEYWORDS
The marketing environment approaching and entering 2026 is defined less by any single new tool or platform than by the simultaneous restructuring of how brands are discovered, how performance is measured, and how marketing teams are organized. Artificial intelligence, and increasingly agentic AI, now underpins much of the execution layer of marketing, but the sources reviewed consistently locate durable competitive advantage in the human elements that AI does not replace: strategic judgment, trustworthy data practices, authentic creative storytelling, and disciplined measurement tied to business outcomes. Organizations that treat these shifts as a set of connected systems, rather than as isolated tactics to be adopted piecemeal, appear best placed to convert growing complexity into sustained growth. Several practical implications follow from this synthesis. First, organizations should invest in first-party data infrastructure and a single, leadership-endorsed measurement framework before expanding AI-driven personalization, since the value of automation depends heavily on the quality and governance of the data feeding it. Second, resource allocation should increasingly favor conversion, retention, and lifecycle marketing alongside acquisition, given the outsized returns available from even modest improvements in conversion performance. Third, brands should identify a small number of high-value channels or communities per audience segment rather than attempting uniform presence across all available platforms. Future research and continued monitoring will be needed as agentic AI systems mature further and as regulatory approaches to data privacy and content authenticity continue to evolve over the remainder of the decade.
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Publication Date
7/17/2026
Peer Review Type
Double-Blind Peer Review
Review Rounds: 2
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Conflict of Interest
The authors declare no conflict of interest related to this research work.
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