The Future of Retail in 2026: AI Everywhere, Smarter Spending, Stronger Brands
$37 B
Retailers in 2026 are expanding brand storytelling beyond traditional social media feeds by testing platforms like Substack, Reddit, and Discord to foster deeper, human-powered engagement and community authenticity. This strategy complements short-form video and creator content, with creator spend on track to hit roughly $37 B next year, as brands seek trust and long-term connection.
693%
AI dramatically reshaped holiday shopping in 2025 as AI-driven traffic to retail sites jumped about 693% year-over-year during November–December and tech tools like chatbots helped guide millions of shoppers to deals faster. Retailers increasingly used AI to personalize buying experiences and influence purchasing decisions across the season.
$3B
Netflix more than doubled its ad revenue to about $1.5 B in 2025 and is now pushing to hit $3 B in ad sales in 2026 while it builds its own ad tech stack. The company also continues pursuing its high-stakes acquisition of Warner Bros., an $83 B deal that executives say will help compete with rivals like YouTube for both ads and subscriptions.
6.6%
Madison & Wall projects U.S. ad spending will rise about 6.6% in 2026, despite economic and policy uncertainty, driven mainly by commerce, search, and social channels. Online advertising is poised for 20%+ growth, while traditional TV falls further behind, as automated programmatic buying captures an increasing share of spending across the open internet.
3.3%
U.S. private-label (store-brand) sales hit a record $282.8 B in 2025, rising 3.3% and growing nearly three times faster than national brands, as shoppers increasingly choose value and quality. Unit sales also climbed to about 68.7 B, signaling real consumer adoption across categories.
$51 M
Zoom’s early $51 M investment in AI company Anthropic from 2023 could now be worth roughly $2 B–$4 B, according to analysts, as Anthropic’s valuation climbs toward $350 B. This “hidden gem” stake could offer Zoom a huge return and reshape investor views on the company’s growth potential.
2026
Retailers are betting big on selling through external AI platforms like ChatGPT and Google’s Gemini in 2026, but this risks losing direct access to shopper data and control over customer relationships. As AI-driven e-commerce traffic rapidly grows, many executives worry this shift could weaken brand loyalty and hand more power — and valuable data — to AI tech players instead of the retailers themselves.