Each new year is an opportunity for analysts to predict the major trends that will likely strengthen in the coming year. A review of 2026’s vintage in the fields of AI, marketing, and communications.
1. AI: The Era of Multimodal
The first prediction comes from the famous American investment fund Andreessen Horowitz (or a16z). Among its associates, Justine Moore sees creative AI tools becoming multimodal, meaning they can handle text, voices, images, and videos simultaneously.
“Why couldn’t we give a model a 30-second video and ask it to continue the scene with a new character created from a reference image and a voice?” she asks.
Before concluding:
“2026 is the year AI becomes multimodal. I expect to see several successful products covering different use cases and customer types, from meme creators to Hollywood filmmakers.”
2. The Era of “AI Slop”
Merriam-Webster’s word of the year for 2025? “Slop.” While this English word previously referred to a product of little value or food scraps given to animals, it has taken on a new dimension with generative artificial intelligence.
Today, it corresponds more to “low-quality digital content, generally produced in large quantities using artificial intelligence.” These absurd images or implausible videos flood social media feeds, like shrimp-shaped Jesus figures or animals bouncing on trampolines.
American publishing company Kapwing estimates that more than 20% of short videos offered to a new user on YouTube are “AI slop.” A trend that platforms will have to address… unless they prefer to seize the opportunity. Like OpenAI’s Sora application, which allows for the abundant generation of AI videos.
3. The Era of Synthetic Data
This prediction comes from Kantar’s 2026 marketing trends. In the age of AI, why not analyze “augmented audiences,” meaning enriched with synthetic data. A method that may surprise or even deter some marketing managers. But according to Kantar, it demonstrates an accuracy of 94% to 95% compared to observed reality.
Cases will multiply in 2026, like Rona’s experimentation in this area with Cossette, to gain time and reduce research costs.
4. The Era of the End of Soulless Content
That’s at least the opinion of digital content creation consultant and trainer Isarta Francis Jette.
“We’re going to live in a world where it will be so much simpler to produce content that what will stand out in the future is content worked on by a real person with a little touch of imperfection,” he shares in an interview.
A response to the “AI slop” mentioned just previously.
“Human content will become highly differentiating. Always with the same question: what makes us unique and will allow us to stand out from our competitors?”
After years of obsession with performance and assembly-line production, users are demanding meaning, authenticity, and intentional creativity.
5. The Ever-Growing Battle for Brand Trust
This last trend comes from Brandwatch’s 2026 Social Media Trends Barometer. The culprits: intrusive advertisements, disappointing experiences, or deceptive pricing practices. Thus, the report shows that 54% of online discussions related to advertising express anger.
An advertising fatigue, caused by a “deluge of unavoidable and intrusive ads,” that brands will have to address in 2026 to avoid losing their customers’ hearts.
training.isarta.com
training.isarta.com 
