Everything everywhere all at once: predictions for 2026 across the media landscape

The forces shaping the media services landscape’s next phase aren’t incremental improvements. They’re structural. Artificial Intelligence (AI)-driven automation and consolidation across agencies and platforms, growing scrutiny on Return on Investment (RoI), and the convergence of media, commerce, and experience. Together, these shifts are changing not just how media is planned and bought, but what media services are, how value gets priced, and who really holds control.

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The predictions presented in the exhibit below are indicative shifts already visible in commercial models, platform behavior, and operating structures. Taken together, they outline how media will be bought, governed, and differentiated by the end of 2026 and what service providers and enterprises must do to stay ahead as execution becomes automated but advantage, harder to sustain.

Exhibit: 2026 predictions for media services

We take a closer look below.

Prediction 1: Outcomes become the new commercial currency in media deals

By the end of 2026, more media/agency engagements will shift from effort-based pricing (hours, seats, volume) to hybrid outcome-linked structures (base fee + incentive + renewal triggers), increasingly anchored in productized/licensable solutions (measurement, optimization, creative testing) rather than bespoke labor. The practical change is that commercial terms will be negotiated around Key Performance Indicators (KPI) definitions, measurement rules, and accountability as much as (or more than) delivery capacity.

Why this matters:

For service providers

As AI automates execution and optimization, pricing based on effort becomes harder to justify

Providers will need to package capabilities into repeatable, licensable solutions and link renewals to measured outcomes such as return on ad spend, cost per acquisition, and incremental reach

For enterprises buyers

Buyers are placing greater emphasis on clear links between spend and business impact, including revenue contribution and efficiency gains

Improved cross-platform measurement and more consistent metrics make it easier for the leadership to track and optimize around outcomes

Indicative signals

Google’s Performance Max explicitly optimizes across channels using Google AI, driven by advertiser objectives and provided creatives, assets, and signals

TikTok positions Smart Performance Campaign as an end-to-end automation designed to maximize delivery outcomes with less manual input

World Federation of Advertisers (WFA) research found that 74% of advertisers want stronger alignment between agency compensation and business performance, while 58% expect outcome- or performance-based fees to increase

Prediction 2: AI orchestration layers emerge as the control plane across fragmented RMNs

By the end of 2026, an orchestration layer above Retail Media Networks (RMNs) will become the default operating model for many brands, integrating retailer-specific workflows, normalizing execution, and translating fragmented performance signals into decision-ready insights. This layer will increasingly use agentic AI for pacing, issue detection, and budget reallocation under consistent KPI logic, while respecting each RMN’s constraints and keeping human approvals where required.

Why this matters:

For service providers

Retailer-specific tools and workflows increase variability, making delivery, optimization, and reporting harder to standardize and scale

Agentic AI provides a practical way to reduce coordination effort by overseeing multi-network execution, flagging issues, and recommending actions within a unified workflow, while keeping human approval in place

For enterprise buyers

Return comparison remains difficult because outcome definitions, attribution methods, and reporting differ across RMNs, limiting confidence in budget allocation decisions

Even as measurement standards improve, execution will remain retailer-specific, increasing the value of orchestration and interpretation that convert fragmented data into decision-ready insights

Indicative signals

Platforms such as Skai, Pacvue, RMIQ, and Flywheel are positioning themselves as cross-RMN enablement layers. They integrate multiple RMNs into shared workflows and embed AI-driven automation for bidding, budgeting, pacing, and reporting. This points to the emergence of an orchestration layer that sits above RMNs, supporting scale and consistency without replacing retailer-specific systems

IAB’s Retail Media Measurement Guidelines explicitly aim to create a common framework across on-site, off-site, online, and in-store retail media

Prediction 3: MCPs will become the control plane of media services

Model Context Protocols (MCPs) will emerge as the operating layer that sits between agencies, platforms, and AI systems. In practical terms, MCPs ensure that every AI-driven media action, planning, buying, optimization, creative testing, or measurement starts with a shared understanding of brand objectives, channel roles, risk thresholds, and commercial constraints. This moves media operations away from narrow, metric-led automation toward context-aware decisioning, where trade-offs are explicit and decisions are explainable.

Why this matters:

For service providers

Competitive advantage will no longer come from proprietary tools or labor-heavy execution but from how effectively an agency structures, maintains, and evolves contextual intelligence across clients

Agencies with mature MCP layers will deliver faster decision cycles and more consistent outputs without the risk of margin pressure and platform commoditization

For enterprise buyers

MCPs offer a path to regain control without fully bringing media execution in-house

By insisting on owned or shared MCP layers, buyers can encode brand rules, data permissions, and performance priorities once, and have them consistently enforced across agency partners and platforms

Indicative signals

Meta’s Advantage+ campaigns move optimization away from manual setup toward model-driven execution. Advertisers increasingly focus on defining inputs such as creative strategy, conversion signals, exclusions, and budget priorities rather than channel-level tactics. This mirrors MCP logic: decision quality depends on context quality

In December 2025, Anthropic donated MCP to the Agentic AI Foundation under the Linux Foundation (with OpenAI and Block also contributing projects), signaling a push toward interoperable agent infrastructure

Prediction 4: Channel innovation will enter its next phase as physical experiences become programmable

Channel innovation will shift beyond screens and algorithms into physical attention environments, not as a rejection of digital, but as the next turn in a familiar adoption cycle. Historically, periods of rapid technological scale are followed by a rebalancing toward experiences that restore presence, trust, and shared meaning. What makes this different from earlier cycles is convergence: physical experiences can now be integrated with digital systems through data capture, amplification, and post-event engagement, turning live moments into repeatable, measurable media assets.

Why this matters:

For service providers

Spatial media represents a new axis of differentiation as digital execution becomes increasingly automated

Orchestrating live environments and integrating them with digital ecosystems allows agencies to move upstream as architects of attention, not just buyers of impressions

For enterprise buyers

Incremental digital focus is delivering diminishing attention and differentiation, making fewer, higher-quality physical moments more effective across the funnel

Live interactions generate consented first-party data and trigger post-event digital journeys that influence consideration, conversion, and loyalty

Indicative signals

Brands such as Red Bull, Nike, and Adidas are building proprietary event ecosystems, effectively operating as media owners that generate content, community, and first-party engagement. Phygital infrastructure (QR, NFC, apps, ticketing) is closing the loop between physical attendance and digital identity, enabling measurement, retargeting, and commerce integration

Red Bull Media House offers a partner content platform built around Red Bull events and extreme sports by producing live broadcast events and original programming globally

Prediction 5: Creatives and commerce will converge into a full-funnel growth engine

As media surfaces increasingly function as commerce touchpoints, creative assets, including influencer and creator content, will no longer be designed for isolated funnel stages. Instead, a single creative idea, expressed across brand assets and creator-led formats, will be expected to drive awareness, consideration, and conversion, often within the same platform, session, or interaction.

Influencer and creator content accelerates this convergence by introducing products, validating them through experience, and increasingly enabling immediate transaction via embedded links, native checkout, or affiliate mechanics. As a result, creators are evolving from reach partners into performance drivers within the commerce ecosystem.

This shift fundamentally changes creative economics. Instead of producing separate assets for brand, performance, retail, and influencer activation, a unified creative-commerce approach enables continuous reuse and optimization across touchpoints.

Why this matters:

For service providers

Influencer-only agencies or brand-only creative shops that are nascent at connecting content to commerce outcomes risk being marginalized or absorbed into broader growth platforms

Agencies will be expected to deliver ideation, production, creator management, media integration, optimization, and reporting as a single service. Providers relying on fragmented scopes will see margin pressure unless they automate aggressively

For enterprise buyers

Influencer partnerships can be evaluated and optimized using the same performance signals as retail and performance media, improving governance and budget allocation

Commerce-enabled creative and creator systems allow brands to extract more value from existing spend, partially offsetting rising media costs

Indicative signals

Publicis Groupe’s acquisitions of Influential and Captiv8, along with WPP’s acquisitions of Obviously, Village Marketing, and The Goat Agency show how agencies are integrating creator platforms into broader data and media offerings rather than treating influencer marketing as a stand-alone activity

PMG’s recent acquisition of Digital Voices reflects a broader industry shift to integrate influencer marketing into full funnel service stacks, embedding creator capabilities within media, technology, and analytics offerings rather than treating them as stand-alone services

Prediction 6: Agency consolidation will diversify the service provider pool

As consolidation accelerates, a small number of global behemoths will dominate the media services market. WPP, Omnicom, and Publicis will account for an unprecedented share of global media spend, positioning themselves as scaled media supermarkets with bundling planning, buying, technology, and owned or controlled inventory.

Consolidation and convergence will give rise to a more diverse services pool, which includes scaled agency behemoths, IT Business Partner (IT-BP) players with media capabilities, specialist orchestration and measurement providers, and creator- or commerce-led platforms. Each of these vendor types will bring different strengths, incentives, and commercial models to the table.

Why this matters:

For service providers

Large agency networks will double down on scale-led economics, leveraging media concentration, principal-based buying, and bundled offerings, while alternative providers will compete on governance and outcome accountability

Service providers will need to clearly articulate where value is created, whether through leverage, orchestration, technology, or governance, rather than relying on broad “full-service” positioning

For enterprise buyers

As media buying models evolve, advertisers with stronger oversight of fees, inventory sources, and performance attribution will make better allocation decisions over time

Buyers will negotiate not just rates and fees, but outcome definitions, transparency clauses, audit rights, and control over optimization decisions

Indicative signals

Major holding companies have continued to absorb creative, media, data, influencer, and commerce specialists, reinforcing the emergence of a small number of dominant, multi-capability agency ecosystems designed to aggregate buying power

The combined Droga5 and Accenture Song offering that secured the Optus account in Australia highlights how creative excellence, technology, data, and operating-model rigor are increasingly being sold as a single proposition

Bringing it together

Across these predictions, a clear pattern emerges: media is becoming more automated, more outcome driven, and more structurally complex, while differentiation is becoming rarer and more valuable. AI will absorb execution, orchestration layers will normalize fragmentation, and consolidation will amplify efficiency. But none of these forces, on their own, guarantee better outcomes.

The next phase of advantage will belong to those who design for intent rather than volume, who encode context into AI systems, treat creativity as a growth lever rather than a cost, and apply governance where automation alone will optimize to the average. For agencies, this means moving from service delivery to control-plane design. For enterprises, it means deciding where to cede efficiency and where to retain authority.

As media becomes faster, cheaper, and more measurable, the question is whether it will also be more effective. The answer will depend less on tools and more on the choices about control, incentives, and consistency.

If you found this blog interesting, check out, The great media rewrite: rewiring media operations for an influencer-led era – Everest Group Research Portal, which delves deeper into another topic relating to media services.

To take the conversation forward, please contact Nitish Mittal ([email protected]), Lochan Surana ([email protected]), Ravi Varun (r[email protected]), or Sanskar Chauhan ([email protected]).