Orchestrate or Automate?

Marketing’s AI Crisis Point Is Here, Say Leaders From Nectar360 and Empathy Lab at The Drum’s Predictions Event.

AI isn’t the risk in 2026 – fragmented, slow decision-making is, says Alice Anson, director of digital media at Nectar360, part of the Sainsbury’s Group. She was underlining the fact that, if 2025 was the year marketing bedded in AI, 2026 is going to be the year when it blows everything apart.

Incremental automation is no longer enough, our panel agreed: the next generation of leaders are re-architecting marketing for orchestration, not efficiency.

“The thing that constrains marketing isn’t that one part of the process isn’t automated. [what] constrains it is that the whole system has a lot of friction in it, and AI has the capacity to unlock orchestration across that system,” says David Billings, chief strategy officer at Empathy Lab by EPAM.

Why? Agentic systems and predictive decisioning are compressing planning cycles, while consumers are abandoning traditional funnels for AI-led discovery. Demand is now shaped inside machines, not campaigns. And that creates a stark choice for brands: strengthen meaning and relevance or quietly disappear into algorithmic sameness. The problem is, though, most organizations are still built for a slow, linear world of fragmented teams and disconnected data.

The panel dug into what marketing orchestration means in practice: how brands should work differently with retail and commerce media partners, where CMOs should start if they want to redesign their operating model, and what ‘good’ actually looks like when orchestration is done right.

“AI works really well when it is unseen,” Anson says, explaining that it needs to be treated as a partner across the organization which brings teams together without actually, physically needing to get them together.

Meanwhile, Billings advises: “it’s about identifying the use case within your business and then empowering your internal and external network around that – not trying to do everything at once.”

The takeaway? 2026 demands bolder moves, clearer leadership and a willingness to redesign marketing around connected decision-making, not just faster outputs.

To hear the full discussion, practical examples and final advice from the panel, watch the full video here.

By combining EPAM’s engineering DNA with data science, advanced AI and creative strategy, Empathy Lab helps marketing leaders shift from reactive marketing to proactive customer orchestration, delivering the right message at the right time with precision and empathy: www.empathylab.com