With 2025 seeing the mega-merger between Omnicom and IPG now complete, WPP consolidating its media agencies under WPP Media, and more consolidations in the pipeline, for our year-ender series, we asked experts to share 'the one consolidation they see happening in 2026'.

Here's what Nidhi Alexander, chief marketing officer, Hexaware Technologies, said:

In 2026, the real story of consolidation in marketing and advertising will be a pivot from scale to agility. This narrative will be driven by companies offering a seamless experience, with the consolidations seen across media, content and marketing services. The emergence of cognitive experience ecosystems that converge to offer seamless offerings will be those that stand out. AI will play a differentiating role marked by a shift from that of buying scale to one of owning speed, and how intelligently AI is used to provide cohesive offerings will be the defining factor.

Smart AI deployment will be the make-or-break factor, knitting together personalised content, real-time distribution, and targeted marketing into cohesive journeys that feel effortless. Forward-thinking companies will use AI not just for efficiency, but to anticipate audience moods, remix narratives on the fly, and transform scattered interactions into addictive, loyalty-forging loops.

In this landscape, winners won't just consolidate; they'll accelerate. They'll turn passive viewers into engaged communities, outpacing rivals stuck in siloed operations. As generative AI becomes a primary decision layer across discovery, evaluation and purchase, marketing will move beyond traffic acquisition to influence how brands are represented in interactions primarily driven by artificial intelligence. Generative platforms will play a crucial role here, augmenting the interpretation of information from noise. Brands that are not optimised for these systems could be at risk, even if they are ranked well today. Since the focus is on unified ecosystems that leverage predictive analysis, companies that can take advantage of these factors will stand out. In this context, relevance backed by agility and smart operations is what will define the new crop of brands in an AI driven marketing era in 2026. 

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'Disney's catalogue and IP would be seamlessly extendable across Apple hardware and software'
'India's next media consolidation will be regional, not corporate'
'Brands are consolidating their trust, budgets, long-term partnerships with independent agencies'
'Consolidation won't shrink agencies; it will rewire them'
'Creativity, culture, and taste won't consolidate; they'll collaborate'
'Legacy networks also stand to benefit the most'
'There will be a real consolidation of talent'