Artificial intelligence, the fragmentation of consumption and the transformation of audiences are forcing brands to rethink how they understand insights, engagement and decision making. GWI’s latest global report, titled “Connecting the dots,” identifies five major trends that many marketing strategies are still underestimating and that will be decisive in 2026.
The conclusions of this report are based on its global consumer study, prepared from an annual sample of more than 230,000 internet users between 16 and 64 years old, spread across more than 50 markets around the world. Through ongoing quantitative surveys with longitudinal behavioral analyses, GWI detects sustained changes in attitudes, media consumption, technology, and brands.

When AI accelerates but impoverishes insights

The adoption of artificial intelligence in marketing is now practically universal. According to GWI, 84% of advertisers and marketers in the United States use AI tools in their work, with platforms such as ChatGPT, Gemini or Copilot leading the way. However, this massive adoption is generating an unexpected side effect: the standardization of insights.

The problem is not AI itself, but the data on which it is based. Many tools work mainly with information available on the open web: old, poorly segmented, inconsistent or biased data. The result is predictable, stereotyped and excessively general conclusions, which tend to reproduce the same patterns over and over again. GWI warns that as the pressure to act quickly increases, so does the risk that strategies are built on “good enough” but not necessarily relevant insights.

The report highlights a paradox in this sense: although professionals declare that consumer insights are critical for decision making, nearly half of business decisions are still made without relying on them. Friction due to time, complexity or excess of data pushes us to trust intuition. So the opportunity for 2026 is to integrate structured and updated data directly into AI systems, combining speed with analytical depth, and not giving up human judgment as a central element of the process.

The great gap between what is said and what is done

Another key trend identified by GWI is the growing contradiction between stated intention and actual behavior. Consumers say one thing and do another, especially in areas such as sustainability, privacy or purchasing decisions. Far from being an anomaly, this gap is a structural constant of contemporary consumption.

The report also dismantles the classic dichotomy between planned purchasing and impulsive purchasing. More than half of consumers make impulsive purchases online at least once a month, but even in high-value categories, such as technology or travel, significant levels of unplanned purchasing are detected. GWI demonstrates that many seemingly impulsive decisions actually respond to latent desires and prior familiarity with brands or products.

The longitudinal analysis between 2019 and 2025 also shows that external factors (shortages, inflation, interruptions in the supply chain…) have significantly altered the relationship between prior intention and final purchase. For brands, this means a shift in focus: stop thinking about closed activation windows and assume that the consumer is “always in the market,” with decisions triggered when a trust threshold is reached, not when an explicit intent is expressed.

Social networks dominate attention time

Despite recurring discourses about the exhaustion of social media, GWI data indicates that the combined time consumers spend weekly on social media and short video exceeds that spent on linear television, streaming and radio combined. On average, it is around 13.5 hours per week, and in the case of young people aged 16 to 24 it is close to 18 hours.

What is changing is the way it is used. Networks today are less “social” in the classic sense: less is published and more is consumed. Scrolling to fill dead time, discover content or avoid FOMO gains weight compared to direct interaction. Platforms like TikTok are consolidating themselves as entertainment spaces, while others maintain more functional roles, such as personal contact or the publication of images.

For brands, the focus is still there, but it requires content designed to capture, not disrupt. In 2026, social networks are the main media environment where consumer time is disputed.

The 2026 World Cup and a new way of being a fan

The 2026 World Cup will be the largest in history, both in terms of reach and advertising investment. However, GWI warns that fans no longer respond to the traditional profile. The audience has fragmented into multiple micro-communities with very different ways of experiencing the event.

“True fans” combine following the tournament with gaming, especially titles like EA Sports FC or Fortnite, and extend the experience beyond the game. Other consumers make up what GWI calls the “virtual crowd”: mobile followers, who consume summaries, highlights and social content in short fragments, but who show high levels of engagement with brands. There are also “reluctant fans”, interested more in the cultural component of the event (gastronomy, travel, sustainability…) than in football itself.

The report emphasizes that even non-spectators of the World Cup are not irrelevant: many follow other sports and maintain high spending on merchandising. In a context of advertising saturation, the challenge for brands will be to identify where and how each type of fandom manifests itself, instead of only competing for attention at the most obvious moments.

Generation Alpha: it is not the extension of Gen Z

The fifth major trend focuses on Generation Alpha, whose oldest members will turn 16 in 2026. GWI warns against one of the most common mistakes in generational marketing: assuming that Alpha is a direct continuation of Gen Z.

The data shows a generation shaped by a different context: pandemic, more conscious parenting, greater parental regulation of digital use and a hybrid relationship between online and in-person. Although they remain digital natives, Alphas show signs of rebalancing: more interest in physical activities, board games, traditional toys, and voluntary breaks from using devices.

At the same time, its capacity for economic influence is growing. More than half of children between 8 and 11 years old already participate in family purchasing decisions, and between 12 and 15 years old the number of purchases made autonomously increases. For brands, the challenge is to reach them with a respectful, empowering tone adapted to their age, avoiding treating them as “premature adults” or as a simple replica of previous generations.