As the year winds down and 2026 rapidly approaches, it’s important to reassess your marketing strategies in relation to budding industry trends that will define the coming year.
Unsurprisingly, AI is projected to continue to play a major role in consumer behavior, which alters the strategies that marketers need to employ. While this technology reaches into every corner of our lives, it’s important to remember that maintaining a human-forward mentality is increasingly critical in gaining and maintaining your audience’s attention.
Washingtonian Custom Media has identified key considerations for your organization as we approach the new year:
Generative Engine Optimization
As we’ve written about before, traditional SEO will continue to be challenged by the rise of LLMs as chatbots become responsible for guiding consumers through their buying journey. Many are referring to this as “Generative Engine Optimization” and it’s expected to redefine the best practices of the marketing industry. Marketing managers will need to continue to cater to these bots by enhancing the findability of information about their products, brand and organization.
In order to continue to be competitive, brands also need to lean into garnering authentic content by building out their relationships with journalists, creators, and their existing consumer base as well as improving the AI-readability of their advertisements. Some experts suggest that enhanced Q&As, blog posts with bullet points and comparison tables could be helpful in aiding LLMs to pick up on your content, ultimately improving your engagement and conversion rates.
Exploring Short-Form Content
As the continuously expanding popularity of TikTok, Instagram Reels and Youtube Shorts show us, short-form content is a growing medium through which consumers are developing perceptions about brands and organizations. At the same time, TikTok shop, which launched in 2023 but grew in prominence throughout 2025, supports these videos in prompting immediate customer conversion. Many household brands — including Disney — are beginning to take advantage of this new market.
Customers are proving to be most drawn to creators who appear authentic, with 79% of consumers acknowledging that user-generated content influences their purchasing decisions. To make the most of this growing industry, organizations may find it beneficial to expand their portfolio by working with micro-creators (those with small to mid-size dedicated audiences) who are able to make engaging video content that showcases their products.
Relying on Human Creativity
As content creation becomes easier due to the wide scale use of AI-powered image and text generation platforms, there is also a high likelihood that content across platforms will become more homogeneous, making it harder for consumers to discern between brands.
It’s also important to note that studies also show that consumers still distrust AI-generated images, perceiving companies that use them as ‘impersonal and lacking credibility.’ As a result, human innovation and creative ability has risen in value and plays a critical role in differentiating your brand from its competitors, especially when it comes to marketing efforts.
If you struggle with keeping up with content creation, consider expanding your creative team, or bringing in a custom media team — like WCM — that will connect you with brand-aligned artistic visionaries consistently.