The Growth And Brand Resilience Guide For 2026
Marketing Unfiltered #58 → Win With Human + AI Agents Connection. Your 5-step Plan To Win Next Year
Welcome back! Only a few more weeks until a little festive break!
Harry’s letter to his younger self really struck a few chords last week, thanks for the lovely feedback!
This week I wanted to inspire you on how Marketing & Growth Leaders can rethink how you’ve always done and it and then guide their departments towards deeper connection to win in 2026.
2026 is going to be the year of Growth & Brand Resilience: by training for AI, scaling community, and measuring new activities.
Let me know how you think I got on hit reply, DM me on LinkedIn, or message me below
Let’s have a proper talk about how we could win next year…
The next year or so is going to be defined by two massive, non-negotiable forces: the total, quiet integration of AI into most workflows, and the growing, urgent demand for genuine human connection amidst all the digital noise and the digital disconnect that many are feeling.
As a CMO/CGO, your challenge isn’t merely to optimise the current budget or tweak what you did in 2025; it’s about strategically divesting from those tired, outdated channels and pivoting resources towards environments where intimacy, trust, and real value are the primary currencies to create business success.
The era of Broadcast Marketing is fundamentally over. Despite how some operate spray and pray, this is not an option anymore.
The future (potentially) belongs to savvy brands that successfully navigate the shift from the polished, public broadcast model to the smaller, often private, personalised networks, creating a feeling of 1-2-1 relationships and a brand that knows and gets you.
As a Marketing executive: you have to be honest, you’re not just managing a Department; you’re a company executive leading the charge and having to act as a cartographer for your business, sketching out entirely new territories of growth while showing the direction of travel.
This means you must place the guardrail early, audit your presence in the most critical, non-traditional engagement zones and create new missions for teams to complete on for business success.
Metrics Of Success Update: Success will look very different in Q1 2026, you will have to look at tracked shareable asset uptake, consider how you track codes or unique content-assisted revenue, introduce smart tracking like UTM in chat-sourced links and imagery, review branded search lift post-share and consider how you track NPS in a world of agentic feedback.
So whether your core KPI’s are chasing growth, doubling down on retention, or having to optimise towards CAC efficiency or CLV this should help you shape your plan.
Here are 4 areas to inspire you to reconsider 2026 plans, drive growth and build brand resilience for 2026 and beyond.
1/ The AI Agent Economy and Group Chat Integration
Priority: High - Create: 90 Day roadmap with Product.
Requires Brand safety standards for agents and bots. creators and group chat agents. Look at data privacy for AI, update consent, storage, usage data.
AI is no longer primarily a content generation tool; it is rapidly becoming a decisive intermediary layer between your brand and the consumer. In early 2026, many purchasing decisions will be heavily influenced and executed by AI agents (via shopping assistants, GenAI searches and agentic browser actions) operating on the customer’s behalf.
Group chats will either be assisted by AI or take place in AI, this is a core behaviour change you could skip ahead of your competitors with…
Actionable AEO (aka GEO, AIEO…): I’m going to call it - we have to move away from ignoring SEO and just considering discovery in LLMs through more content creation, we have to start thinking: Are you offering custom or unique offerings that ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude and co will have to reward you? Is it a set of free downloads, an new way of interacting or a customised approach to Q&A not just answering a load of questions for LLMs but moving towards becoming a destination to interact with your brand and products?
ChatGPT Apps: Although early on their journey, there is a huge opportunity to build into the ChatGPT ecosystem and become the default app they work with inside of ChatGPT. Be inspired by how Canva and HubSpot are considering being the primary apps and the default tools within LLMs - can you be the first or only in your space?
Establish Richer Presence in “Dark Social”: Platforms like WhatsApp and iMessage are where real, trusted conversations are taking place. Word of mouth is vital in B2C, DTC and B2B and with the rise of the iMessage, WhatsApp and Discord industry communities, we can gain valuable feedback within minutes and not rely heavily on search engines and hopeful LinkedIn post. A way to move forward is to develop modular, human-verified content (e.g., highly accurate pricing sheets, clear value propositions, our hand selected products etc) that users can easily copy, paste, and share privately within these trusted circles, ensuring your message is shared accurately when your community chats about you and can be backed up and validated by community members.
Create Sharable Knowledge Kits: I challenge you to create more value for customers, you could create customer toolkits, comparison sheets, quick tutorial GIFs and short form video designed to appear on AI search and prompts and appear in Q&A queries Social is moving away from posts for post sakes into highlighting topics you are showing interest in, social feeds are rewarding accounts creating unique and episodic content - to entice brands back they might need to switch to rewarding brands who provide value to their customers…
Lean Into AI Group Chats: Group chats are the natural next step in AI’s evolution, single player mode only gets you so far, multi player is where the tools want to be and where adds most value to groups and families. We were flirted with by OpenAI over the last three weeks and is likely something team members, family members and friends use to book trips, organise events, select restaurants all by validating what they have seen on social media and recommending places that can serve everyone’s dietary requests, taking out the stress and strain for individuals and enabling AI to serve complex requirements is the next evolution
Group Discounts: There are opportunities to revisit previous successful tools and services and explore AI-powered group buying experiences, imagine “friendsourcing” decisions within chats, assisted by embedded brand agents and offering exclusive pricing and discounting for x number of bookings…
Social Search: Social is maturing from just post and like to new “search engines” for product/brand discovery and chatter. Indexability in these channels (e.g. making content snippet-able, link-ready, and easy for AI to parse) is a potential growth frontier
Expect A Meta AI Comeback? Meta have been slow to make Meta AI useful in WhatsApp, next year will be the year Meta comes out swinging, consider how WhatsApp search will become an important play for your brand.
AI agents won’t just surface recommendations, they’ll own more of the customer journey (like Aisha’s new journey from MU 47 & shown below), from research to purchase. Brands must train their data for AI and agentic “co-purchasing”, configuring feeds and APIs so agents can transact smoothly, answer nuanced questions, and cross-check info in chats and make in AI feed recommendations and offer to complete purchases on your behalf.
2/ The Creator Economy & Substack Ecosystem
Priority: Medium High - Create: 180 Day roadmap with Influencer & Product Marketing Teams.
Requires Brand safety measures for creators and community members. Review data ownership on third party ESP’s. Review data privacy for AI, update consent, storage, usage data.
The trust gap between consumers and traditional advertising is widening. People trust creators, KOL (key opinion leaders), ITK (in the know) accounts, niche experts, and community leaders much more than polished brand feeds. This signals a mandatory shift from short-term transactional influencer campaigns to longer-term “Creator Collaborator Programmes”.
Think of yourself as a Gardener; your job is to nurture the niche ecosystem where trust grows best, rather than scatter seeds everywhere and hope for the best.
Fund Niche: Invest in long-term partnerships with “Substack authors” and Beehiiv writers, audience driven podcasters, and specialised micro-creators who build communities around shared values. Understand that EIE (education, inspiration and entertainment) are the core areas we want covered by niche creators - it’s why we follow and engage with them, create long term relationships and consider employed roles to represent your business. These channels allow you to bypass media fragmentation, algorithmic filtering and speak directly to an engaged, subscription-loyal audience.
Early Access: Something Google did well recently with Gemini 3.0 is provide early access to KOLs and AI experts to share their early takes and showcase how they used the new tools. Sneak peeks and behind the scenes will also work well if you have ECG (employee generated content creators)
Go Deeper With Fans: Fans are more deeply connected than ever before, subscriptions are more than just email or just a social post, they now have “high-touch” benefits like regular live Q&As, AMAs session, invite only Discords and Slacks, or quarterly physical meetups, embedded brands are now part of the community, and act as a layer of trust enabling meet ups and paying for meals and entertainment. Can you offer a deeper level of connection between creators and their superfans?
Long Term Investment Engines: Many brands are investing in private creator communities; helping to facilitate off-platform interactions, could you be inspired to create a book club or run club, offer a mentorship programs, create creator-in-residence role, or be part of empowering community members with unique content libraries?
Prioritise Ownership: Use platforms like Substack or proprietary newsletter tools to build connections and first-party data loyalty. Substack is building a community where subscribers want to engage and feel safe to engage with newsletters, notes and audio posts.
» Need inspiration? Check the Acquired podcast and their approach to community with slack and IRL events
WATCH: A few months ago, Chris Hutchings did a great job breaking down how to leverage content and (internal or external) influencers to get results.
3/ Social Product and Community-Led Product Feedback
Priority: High - Create: 180 Day roadmap with Product & Customer Support.
Requires Brand safety measures for customers and and community members.Review data ownership on third party tools. Review data privacy for AI, update consent, storage, usage data.
Community is a buzzword many use but its rare to actually build. Not only a deeper way to connect and integrate with your customers but a way across B2B, B2C & DTC to have feedback loops that work for both you and your customers.
Community Roadmaps: Product roadmaps are increasingly co-developed in closed community spaces (across Slack, Discord servers and private forums), blurring the line between Marketing and Product - this will help to test, learn and iterate far quicker and more effectively. Private communities are becoming gold mines for social clips, longer form video and audio content and spaces where case studies will feel normal to develop out
Rewarding Community Roles: There will be many brands who will want to leverage the power of niche community admins, who can act as Product Leads and community leads empowered to engage with and reward customers for their help and continued support. That human touch will be felt
“Feedback as a service” is rising: brands can offer micro-incentives for testing and providing feedback pre launch and offer exclusive previews for actionable product feedback, accelerating feedback loop times and reducing launch risk while rewards advocates and superfans. Feedback will become an opportunity to gain customer insights and Market more effectively
Creators As Product Collaborators: Can you collaborate with creators and create new product features and drops, working with them on co-design, codevelopment, and launch narration, forging real product-market “fit by community.”
Daily Show? Could you be the destination for your industry by going live every day? Could it be a live podcast where important industry thought leaders and CEOs join you?
» Need Inspiration? Check out what TBPN are doing with live shows with industry leaders, here is a good breakdown.
4/ The Unmissable Power of In-Real-Life (IRL) Events
Priority: Medium - Create: 180 Day roadmap with Events, Social, Community & Product Marketing.
Requires Brand safety measures for customers and community members. Review data ownership with new third party tools. Review data privacy for AI, update consent, storage, usage data.
In a world saturated with synthetic content and digital noise, the physical, tactile experience of an IRL event is the ultimate differentiator for building brand trust and memory.
Treat IRL As Acquisition: Move events beyond vague “brand building” and position them as a critical, measurable step in the customer journey. Design experiences (whether small executive roundtables or large activations) that allow for immediate, deep, and unscripted human engagement.
Capture Experiential Data: Use every IRL touchpoint to gather first-party data with consent. The quality of insight gained from a 15-minute face-to-face conversation dwarfs the volume of data from a thousand clicks. Make sure this data feeds straight back into your personalisation engine.
Authentic Touchpoints: As synthetic (aka AI slop) content soars, IRL touchpoints drive “believability.” Hybrid event formats, blending immersive physical with exclusive digital elements are slowly becoming table stakes for customer focused brands. B2B brands can create more and richer experiences at events and reimagine the traditional bland brand events…
Personalisation Is Essential: from personalised event reminders based on what customers have brought and interacted with (your behavioural data), to live surprise-and-delight experiences at events for high-value customers, every customer could become a VIP
Measureable IRL: IRL is becoming measurable end to end: from providing low cost new wearables and micro apps in-event nudges can capture attendee sentiment, dwell time, and micro-interactions to enrich post-event personalisation and potentially reward with unique and personalised offers
Micro To Macro: With so many new tools and opportunity to vibe code your own tools, Marketers can now run micro-events for insight rich loops, test messaging or concepts in person, apply live feedback to digital campaigns, and foster ongoing digital-physical engagement cycles.
» Need inspiration? check out
’s community first approach to FeedMe and her influence on Substack.December → January Is Your Phase To Shine
Priority: Medium High - Create: 30 Day reorg roadmap with Heads Of Departments
Our Marketing Departments are now having to blend rich data, creativity (let’s call it gut), taste and operational agility with real rigour to have any impact.
Product and Marketing need to co-own retention and CLV metrics while having the opportunity to build for deeper relationships.
AI isn’t always the answer, use AI to automate the mundane, unlocking teams to focus on moments of genuine human connection, embracing customer surprise, empathy, and delight.
The secret to success in 2026 isn’t a single or new piece of tech; it’s creating the harmony between your people and the platform(s).
Your strategy must integrate creativity and technology to humanise the brand. Its likely time to stop organising your team by outdated channels and restructure around the (shown below) (i) Brand (ii) Performance (iii) Amplification & (iv) Distribution or could it be around the multi-touch multi-step customer journey and connected strategic business outcomes to new user behaviours.
This is where you could become the Orchestra Conductor, ensuring every channel instrument plays in sync to produce a resonant customer experience. This agility, paired with intentional investments in trust-building, will be the true competitive advantage when AI handles speed and scale. Go talk to your teams about what that new map looks like.
Focusing growth efforts across the new funnel will help brands not just adapt but thrive in the 2026 landscape by being both more machine-intelligent and customer-intimate, driving real connection and creating lasting trust.
My 5 Recommended Ways To Reshape Your 2026
Winning 2026 isn’t about one big bet; it’s about deliberate, human-centered moves that work with AI, not against it, and build trust where attention truly lives. How we as Marketing & Growth leaders have always won, using our guts and taste to build something that connects with our audience.
Train for AI agents, not just SEO: Structure data, feeds, and APIs so assistants can answer, compare, and transact on your site. Balance: optimising for LLM discovery without turning content into generic AI slop (many have been penalised already), make your offers genuinely unique so agents must surface you. Here’s the OpenAI’s direction.
Build “Group Chat” shareability: Create modular, human-verified assets (pricing, comparisons, GIF how-tos) that travel in WhatsApp, iMessage, and Discord. Balance is key: keep source-of-truth pages current and updated to avoid outdated snippets roaming private chats.
Invest in creator ecosystems, long term: Partner with niche writers, podcasters, KOLs and community leads; co-create education, inspiration, and entertainment over quarters, not just one and done campaigns. Diversify to avoid over-reliance on any single influencer or channel; use owned channels like Substack for resilience.
Make community your product lab: Run closed betas in Slack/Discord, reward roles, and treat “feedback-as-a-service” as a growth loop. Protect roadmap integrity, publish guardrails so co-creation sharpens your focus rather than derails priorities. Roadmaps are going to be battlegrounds for Product, Sales & Marketing departments, especially with smart team members vibe coding.
Turn IRL into measurable acquisition: Design small, high-touch events that capture consented first‑party insights and feed personalisation. Brands who build for connection and experience will win bigger than those concentrating on just typical URL transactions. Measure what matters (whether thats dwell, sentiment, customer or bot intent), not just vanity; blend hybrid elements to scale trust beyond the room.
If your structure still mirrors old channels, consider how org redesign will make your team more focused and think collaboration first, consider how you could build around brand, performance, amplification, and distribution, or map to multi‑touch journeys with crystal clear outcomes. Here is my previous MU take on Restructuring approach.
Thanks and have a great weekend and we will see you again next Friday morning!
Danny Denhard
PS If you’re struggling with AI, here’s my workshop approach broken down with my co-host
