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Last year, the marketing conversation was all about adopting AI. This year, it'll be about why all that AI-generated marketing isn't really working.

I've been noticing it everywhere lately. That overly optimised engagement bait where every video uses the exact same hooks to grab attention. We all know the formula now. Pattern interrupts, open loops, manufactured curiosity. Pre-validated examples of what captures attention have made most content feel identical.

When everyone has access to the same tools, nobody has an advantage. Your AI-generated landing page looks exactly like everyone else's AI-generated landing page. Your "personalised" emails read like every other "personalised" email. 90% of content marketers are planning to use AI in 2025, up from just 64.7% in 2023. By the end of this year, 30% of outbound marketing messages from large organisations will be synthetically generated, up from less than 2% in 2022.

We're drowning audiences in volume, while at the same time they're actively trying to escape it. Australia has rolled out legislation banning under 16s from social media. For the first time ever, daily time spent social media has actually declined. Every single person I talk to has a new years resolution to “spend less time on my phone”. These aren't isolated trends. They're a coordinated retreat from the always-on digital feeds that marketers keep flooding with more content.

AI has commodified marketing execution. The only way to build lasting brand equity is through authentic human connection.

Here are my 3 predictions that explain what this all actually means for you in 2026.

Posting on LinkedIn and Twitter was phase one. We've moved past that.

2026 is about systematic audience building. Not just thought leadership, but actual distribution infrastructure that you own and control.

Tyler Denk at beehiiv built a newsletter called Big Desk Energy which TIME Magazine's CTO subscribed to. That led to TIME becoming a customer. One of the biggest media brands in the world became a customer, not through an enterprise sales team, but through a weekly email Tyler writes himself.

The format doesn't matter as much as the consistency. Lorikeet, a customer support AI company, runs a YouTube reaction series where co-founders Steve and Jamie react to customer support conversations. When you've watched them joke around and share real opinions for months, working with Lorikeet feels like working with Steve and Jamie personally.

I've noticed how my own content consumption has changed recently. I’ve been drawn towards content that’s more conversational and open source. “Founder-led content” used to mean the odd thought here and there on Twitter or an occasional post on LinkedIn. Now we've got founders running full interview series just chatting to other people and showing way more personality. That's the stuff I actually open and engage with.

It works because people feel they know the humans behind the brand. The trust and likability they develop can't be faked by AI slop, no matter how sophisticated the model.

So in 2026, building an audience isn't optional anymore for founders and executives. Not just for seed-stage startups trying to build awareness, but for established companies competing for attention in saturated markets.

Employee content marketing rises alongside this. Your team becomes your distribution network, but only when it's authentic. Random promotions that everyone can smell from a mile away doesn't work. Real voices sharing real perspectives does.

AI's commodification of execution is what makes this more urgent. Audiences are already actively seeking real people over polished brands. The founders, executives and teams who build audiences now create unfair advantages that compound over time.

Distribution can survive algorithm changes. Real relationships outlast platform shifts. Your owned audience is the one asset competitors and AI can't replicate.

Think of founder/exec content as infrastructure. Start building now while it's relatively easy, and your authentic perspective becomes your compounding competitive advantage.

I still think most marketers will keep chasing AI efficiency, producing more content that audiences increasingly ignore. The winners will go the opposite direction, focusing on intentional human connection and using AI to accelerate rather than replace.

The majority of consumers see ChatGPT as the definition of AI. No doubt their first-mover advantage in AI chat has made them category leaders with 700 million weekly users compared to Gemini’s 400 million and Claude’s 30 million.

But scratch the surface and you’ll see there’s actually a lot more to it.

ChatGPT has positioned itself as the ubiquitous utility tool, basically a Google 2.0, there to make your life easier, help you get things done and become the default for everyday tasks. The problem is they're competing with actual Google (Gemini) for that exact positioning. Two giants fighting for the same territory, not to mention poor old Perplexity.

Meanwhile, Anthropic have taken the premium positioning. The space Apple have filled for decades in the traditional Google vs Apple big tech battle. But Apple's complete absence on AI has left a void in the "premium capability" position that traditionally balanced against Google's "ubiquitous utility" approach. Anthropic is filling it.

ChatGPT's brand campaign said "make your life easier". Claude's said "solve bigger problems". One is about everyday productivity, the other is about transformational capability. Aspirational brand building versus generic utility.

The data shows Anthropic’s position is working. Anthropic has overtaken OpenAI in enterprise LLM usage. 70-75% of Claude's revenue comes from high-value API calls rather than consumer subscriptions. OpenAI spread too thin trying to be everything to everyone. Claude focused on serious builders and won that segment.

Anthropic will continue to own their position and win the more premium and enterprise market. ChatGPT will fight head-on again Google’s Gemini, which I think could be a losing battle for them. I am keeping a close eye on what they’re doing outside of AI chat though.

Jony Ive was Chief Design Officer at Apple overseeing the design of the iMac, iPod, iPhone, iPad, MacBook, Apple Watch, AirPods, and the iOS interface. Yeah, he knows a little bit about winning product design. Last year, OpenAI acquired his hardware startup and announced they’re working together on a physical product. That will be one to watch…

A marketer has an idea for a lead magnet. Previously, they'd gather information and write a brief for a designer or engineer to build the resource. Now they can use tools like Lovable or v0 to build a live, fully interactive experience independently. Idea to execution in hours instead of weeks, and all completely independent.

So smaller teams are achieving more, speed is increasing dramatically, and barriers to experimentation have collapsed.

Output still isn't as good as dedicated professionals, but the gap is shrinking fast.

This year, execution gets even more commodified by AI, but your perspective is what can't be automated. The capability to execute is increasingly table stakes. The vision of what's worth executing is the scarce resource.

But it’s complicated, because while everyone can create more, faster, audiences are consuming less. The volume of output is overwhelming the very people we're trying to reach.

That’s why I think AI-enabled content synthesis and summarisation is coming.

We’ve watched social media become a search engine. 74% of Gen Z uses TikTok search, with 51% choosing it over Google. From 2016 to 2023, Gen Z using social media as their primary search for brands jumped from 40% to 52%.

You used to search Google for "best bars in Sydney" and get a bunch of articles to look through. Now AI reads those articles and tells you what you're looking for. Social media became the new search engine, but you still have to tap through individual pieces of content to extract information.

I can see a similar use case for AI impacting how audiences engage with content just like it’s impacted how they engage with search.

Full-stack marketing is happening right now and will accelerate this year. Content synthesis is showing early signals in 2026 but won't dominate for a few years yet.

That timeline matters because platform dynamics are shifting underneath us. Time spent on platforms is declining, but the platforms themselves aren't going away. Audiences are becoming much more vigilant about how much time they spend and what kind of content is worth their attention.

The creator side and consumer side are moving in different directions. Creators can produce more than ever. Consumers want to consume less than ever. That tension will define the next few years of marketing.

Not to mention the platforms themselves are continually incentivised to keep audiences online for as long as possible…

Most marketers will keep chasing AI efficiency. They'll produce more content that audiences increasingly ignore, wondering why their sophisticated workflows aren't translating to results.

Winners will go the opposite direction.

They’ll build real human connection systematically. Invest in founder and employee media now, while it's still relatively easy to break through. Build owned distribution channels that aren't dependent on any single platform or algorithm.

I'm personally exploring video content this year, even though I've hated the thought of talking to a camera. That's why I've stuck to LinkedIn and newsletter writing. But it's obvious the conversational and human nature of video as a medium builds such strong para-social relationships compared to any other format. The benefits of content marketing are all compounded exponentially through video.

Wish me luck as I cringe rewatching myself 🙃 (and follow along here)

The brands thriving in 2026 will be the ones who figured out that in a world where everyone can execute more volume at the click of a button, being distinctively human is the only brand advantage that matters.

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