The advertising industry is entering 2026 amid a quiet but profound reset. For more than a decade, personalisation was built on accumulation: the more brands knew about a user, the more precise the message was supposed to be. That logic is now under strain. Privacy regulations, platform-level restrictions, and consumer fatigue have sharply limited both the amount of data that can be collected and the duration for which it can be used. What is emerging in its place is not the absence of personalisation, but a new philosophy of it.
Across the industry, the centre of gravity is shifting from who the user is to what the moment means. This change is being driven by AI systems that can synthesise commerce signals, content environments, and live behavioural cues without relying on intrusive identifiers. The implications are as commercial as they are technical. Personalisation is no longer a data arms race; it is becoming a race to interpret intent more quickly, act responsibly, and earn trust consistently.
Medhavi Singh, Country Head of Criteo India, says the transformation ahead is about more than automation. “As we look toward 2026, the real transformation lies not just in increased automation, but in the rise of agentic AI that empowers advertisers with tools that are intuitive, interoperable, and free from the constraints of black-box systems,” she says.
According to Singh, the next phase of personalisation depends on unifying data, intelligence, and experience design so that every part of the value chain can collaborate in real time. The focus is shifting toward transparency, precise attribution, and self-service control, even as AI takes on a greater share of decision-making.
Read On: Marketing and advertising in 2026: Fewer ideas, better execution
From Identity to Intent
This philosophical shift is being reflected across customer engagement and marketing technology platforms. Venkat Thangi, Senior Director of Marketing for Asia and ANZ at MoEngage, describes 2026 as a tipping point, where identity becomes a historical reference and the moment becomes the live signal that matters. “The segment of one has been replaced by the segment of now,” Thangi says.
In his view, personalisation is no longer anchored in who a user was based on past profiles, but in what they are trying to achieve right now. He explains that winning brands are prioritising live behavioural metadata, capturing how users move through digital environments in real time. This includes the order of navigation, the depth of dwell time on specific attributes, and how users move between devices and channels within the same session. These signals help AI distinguish between casual browsing and active consideration, enabling brands to respond before intent fades.
At the same time, legacy signals such as third-party demographics and broad interest categories are steadily losing relevance. Thangi argues that treating users solely based on last year’s purchase history, without considering their current behaviour, is no longer personalisation in any meaningful sense. In a privacy-first world, context and immediacy are proving more valuable than static profiles.
This view is shared by Gaurav Jain, Senior Vice President APAC at InMobi Advertising. Jain believes that by 2026 personalisation will be fundamentally moment-based, built around situational intent rather than static identity. “The most valuable signals will be real-time and contextual,” he says. These include the content a user is engaging with, the device they are using, the time of day, and how close they are to a transaction. “These signals tell us why a moment matters, not just who the user is.”
Rethinking Reach and Value
This evolution is also prompting a rethink of how media value is measured. In a constrained data environment, reach without meaningful signals is increasingly seen as wasted spend. At the same time, highly detailed signals without sufficient scale can limit commercial impact. According to industry leaders, the solution lies in using AI to infer intent across broader audiences, rather than narrowing targeting too early.
Thangi argues that the traditional trade-off between reach and depth has effectively been resolved, with signal depth emerging as the new definition of scale. In his view, mass reach without verified intent is becoming a brand liability rather than an achievement. This has direct implications for buying models built around cheap impressions: paying for volume alone no longer reflects real value if the moment lacks context or intent.
Jain reinforces this point, noting that CPM-only buying is under pressure as advertisers demand greater accountability for outcomes. By 2026, he expects CPMs to increasingly reflect context, predicted intent, and commercial impact, often alongside engagement- or outcome-based measures. The central question for marketers is shifting from how many people were reached to how many high-intent moments were captured.
Read On: Creative agencies 2026 forecast: What will lead the advertising landscape
Where Advantage Will Sit
As personalisation becomes increasingly dependent on speed and execution, the source of competitive advantage is shifting. Ownership of large data sets or even sophisticated AI models is no longer sufficient on its own. What matters is the ability to connect signals to action instantly.
Both Thangi and Jain point to orchestration platforms as the locus of advantage in 2026. These platforms act as intelligence hubs, ingesting, interpreting, and activating diverse signals across touchpoints in milliseconds. Jain notes that the real power of personalisation does not lie in the data itself, but in real-time decisioning that translates insight into action.
Thangi describes orchestration as the layer where the return on AI is ultimately realised. In a world where intent can surface and disappear within a single session, the gap between signal and response determines success. Platforms that can validate a signal, apply judgement, and trigger a coherent response across channels are best positioned to deliver meaningful personalisation.
The Organisational Test
The final question is whether brands themselves are ready for this shift. Both experts suggest that 2026 will expose a significant capability gap across the industry. While the technology to interpret intent exists, many organisations are still structured around slow, linear processes that cannot keep pace with real-time behaviour.
Thangi points out that many brands remain dependent on manual approvals and rigid campaign calendars. In such setups, by the time a message is approved, the intent moment has often already passed. Winning in 2026, he says, will require trusting AI to make micro-decisions instantly, without a human in the loop for every interaction.
Jain adds that this shift requires a cultural change as much as a technical one. Brands will need to let go of the illusion of control that deterministic data once provided and embrace continuous measurement and experimentation. In this context, AI becomes not just a support tool but a decision-maker embedded into the operating system of marketing.
Singh of Criteo sees the same challenge ahead. She believes that the winners in 2026 will be teams that combine data literacy with comfort in AI-led decisioning, while operating within open and connected ecosystems. Responsible data unification and interoperability, she argues, will be critical to scaling both efficiency and creativity in commerce media.
As advertising moves further into the age of constrained data and centralised AI decision-making, personalisation is being redefined as an exercise in trust. The brands that succeed will not be those that know the most about their users, but those that can understand intent in the moment, act with relevance and restraint, and earn the right to engage again.