The short version

Mark Ritson predicted on January 1, 2025: “Strip away the noise, he said, and 2026 would look ‘dramatically like 2025,’ to the point that if marketers looked back a decade from now, it would be ‘borderline impossible’ to tell the two years apart. Ritson was careful to stress that AI has not yet delivered its biggest impact on marketing. He…

Prediction by

Mark Ritson

On January 1, 2025

“Strip away the noise, he said, and 2026 would look ‘dramatically like 2025,’ to the point that if marketers looked back a decade from now, it would be ‘borderline impossible’ to tell the two years apart. Ritson was careful to stress that AI has not yet delivered its biggest impact on marketing. He does not expect strategy development or brand planning to be fundamentally transformed in the next year. 2026 will, as he said, still look much like 2025. Those changes, he said, are coming later.”

Follow-up

Through the end of 2025 and into mid-2026, AI tools have been widely adopted in tactical tasks, while marketing strategy and brand planning practices remain largely human-driven, with AI as an input. This aligns with Ritson’s expectation that these would not be fundamentally transformed within a year. The directional prediction is supported; full assessment of 'borderline impossible to tell the two years apart' will take a decade.

From the High Caliber AI network — see the AI for PR module in the course.