Wow, the year is winding down, crazy! So, I’ll start with the obvious disclaimer.
I’m not Nostradamus. I’m not Mary Meeker. I don’t have a crystal ball or a 150-page trend deck.
And that’s kind of the point. The end of the year isn’t about being right. It’s about slowing down long enough to notice the patterns that already revealed themselves, then choosing what you want to carry forward with intention.
Consider this my entry into the 2026 predictions bandwagon. Not prophecy. Pattern recognition, grounded in the conversations, posts, and debates many of you engaged with me on throughout 2025.
First prediction: AI becomes the forcing mechanism for decision management
I’ve written repeatedly this year that AI didn’t fix growth, creative, or performance. It exposed operating debt. In posts about creative scale, agentic AI, and testing velocity, the same theme kept surfacing. Output exploded. Decisions slowed. Teams produced more answers than leaders could act on. The bottleneck wasn’t intelligence. It was decision ownership, kill criteria, and judgment. In 2026, AI won’t separate winners from losers. Decision systems will.
Second prediction: IRL experiences become the new brand storytelling strategy
My take on Netflix moving into physical experiences wasn’t about retail or merch. It was about lifecycle value and memory. I’ve argued all year that digital reach is commoditized and attribution undervalues emotional imprint. Netflix House isn’t a stunt. It’s infrastructure. A way to turn IP into identity and deepen attachment in a world of infinite content. In 2026, more digital-native brands will follow, not to scale faster, but to build meaning that compounds.
