We’re heading toward a split in 2026.

On one side, you’ll have companies drowning in process. On the other, you’ll have companies that realize the most efficient algorithm is simply trusting your experts to do their jobs (imagine!).

The pattern this year was exhausted teams trying to run sprints while wearing ankle weights and trying to keep pace with the data. It turns out, you can’t automate agility if your culture is addicted to "signing off" on everything.

Ditching the friction will be a major key to success in 2026. No more waiting for a committee to tell you you’re right. Aim for putting work into the world to find out for yourself. It’s a shift from "prove it before we do it" to "do it so we can learn."

We help B2B teams escape the "beige middle" with sharper messaging and creative decisions that actually stick. Don't just compete next year, be the one they remember.

As AI lowers the floor for content creation, "good enough" is about to become the global baseline.

In that environment, a strong brand is a way to help buyers make up their minds faster without reading a whitepaper. B2B buyers are already overwhelmed. They've got kids and mortgages and crippling phone addictions just like the rest of us, so they naturally gravitate toward brands that feel coherent and stable. A clear brand is simply less exhausting to deal with.

Treat positioning as cognitive relief, not just clever messaging. Your job isn't to explain every feature, it's to remove the question marks so the buyer can focus on the decision. The goal is to be the option that doesn't give them a headache.

There has been a consistent theme this year: marketing teams feeling like they have to justify their existence (again), even while driving the growth everyone is counting on.

That dynamic is going to shift in 2026. The pattern has been leaders waiting for perfect data before acting. That's a trap that leads to paralysis. Once you accept that perfect attribution is a myth, you realize that waiting for it is just a great way to lose momentum.

Start treating data as directional guidance, not a judicial verdict. We draw far too many conclusions from data without truly understanding the why. Set the narrative first and let the rest of the business react to the momentum. Internal political capital and authority doesn't come from a perfect dashboard. They come from being the team that makes the business easier to grow.

The era of controlling the conversation is officially ending.

By 2026, the most impactful B2B influence will happen in communities, peer networks, and private chats. Obviously, these are places where you generally can't buy ads. This is an uncomfortable reality for brands used to owning the channel, but buyers trust people more than they trust logos (and certainly more than they trust your press release).

Remember that buyers are humans with human tendencies. They trust the Uber Eats customer who left the 5 star review more than the restaurant.

B2B needs to start participating in 2026. The move here is to invest in being present and useful in these spaces, rather than just trying to funnel traffic back to a landing page.

You have to be interesting enough to be talked about when you aren't in the room.

After years of focusing on optimization and metrics, creativity is becoming measurable again.

The pattern we’re seeing is a market flooded with "optimized" content that no one remembers. When everyone has access to the same tools, data, and playbooks, looking like everyone else is actually a liability. If your content looks like it came out of the same machine as your competitor's, you are effectively invisible.

Stop viewing creativity as a risk and recognize it as the only reliable signal left. Use distinctiveness to cut through the noise. In 2026, standing out is about being noticed in the first place.

None of these predictions rely on new technology. In fact, they should be read as a backlash to AI and automation, if anything. They rely on how we choose to work and how we choose to deploy technology for the best gains.

The open question for 2026 is whether brands will choose to change their habits intentionally, or wait for the market to force their hand.

Happy Holidays and here’s to a bigger and brighter 2026!

—Jay