Kantar’s annual Media Reactions study shows marketers are betting on AI, but many remain uncertain they have the right media mix or right data to deliver growth.
Marketers are rapidly increasing investment in AI assistants, even though consumers remain cautious about the recommendations they provide. This is according to Kantar’s Media Reactions 2026 study, based on interviews with over 800 senior marketers and 23,000 consumers.
Almost two-thirds (62%) of marketers expect GenAI to play a pivotal role in brand recommendations and a net 75% plan to increase investment in AI assistants in 2027. However, while the majority of people feel positive about generative AI’s possibilities and most already use AI assistants, only 32% of consumers are using them to research brands and products and only 23% trust their recommendations.
Many factors could be influencing this lack of trust, including how people feel about AI technology, what they already think about specific brands, the source of AI-generated answers or the way these answers are presented. Understanding and measuring these concerns is critical for marketing investment to pay off.
Gonca Bubani, global director, media at Kantar said: “There’s a lot of money moving towards AI on the assumption people will use it the way the industry expects. The reality is that marketers don’t yet have a firm grasp of the nuanced feelings people have about AI environments or how they work within their wider media mix. That shouldn’t stop them from experimenting with AI, but it does mean they need to carefully test, measure and learn as they invest.”
Declining marketer confidence demands clearer intelligence
As channels like AI and creator content mature, marketers have become less confident navigating the ever-fragmenting media mix and growing volumes of data:
- Only half of advertisers are confident they have the right balance between brand-building and performance marketing (2025: 60%).
- 57% of advertisers feel confident their organisation has the right media mix (2025: 64%).
- Only 51% feel they are extracting actionable intelligence from their data to support their marketing goals.
But this lack of confidence is not all justified. Bubani explains: “Despite their insecurity, marketers are actually getting better at making fragmented channels perform in their favour. Kantar LIFT+ data shows that between 2020 and 2025, 43% of campaign performance came from channels working together, compared with only 18% pre-2014.”
Paul Zwillenberg, CEO at Kantar said: “Marketing has never been harder to navigate, right when businesses need every dollar of investment to work harder. AI now shapes how people discover and choose brands, so strong brands have to earn the right to be recommended – by people, and by the machines guiding them. CMOs are investing more in the future, yet growing less certain about the decisions in front of them today. The answer is better intelligence, not more data.”
Media brand advertising equity, globally
For the first time, Kantar’s ad equity measure combines consumers’ attitudes to advertising on different brand platforms with exposure. This new ranking shows where people are both open to advertising and likely to encounter it, helping advertisers understand which brands offer the strongest mix of consumer acceptance, attention and reach according to consumers.
Meanwhile marketers are backing a small group of digital platforms, with Instagram, YouTube and Google ahead of other brands when it comes to trust scores. Bubani said: “Marketer trust is only one side of the picture. Effective media planning also depends on understanding where consumers are receptive to ads. Comparing those perspectives can reveal if marketers are putting too much stock in their own views, or if they are adequately reflecting consumer demand. This is particularly relevant as investment shifts into AI, creators, commerce media and streaming.”
Creator content shifts from reach to relevance
Planned investment in the creator economy continues to grow, and marketers are looking to shift strategies away from celebrity-level fame to local community depth. Micro-creators (66%) and nano-creators (61%) are the creator types most marketers plan to invest in, ahead of macro- (48%) and mega-influencers (42%).
This is a positive step: Kantar’s Creator Game Plan found that when using creators, platform engagement and brand building potential only align one third of the time, and predicating creator choice on engagement stats had become a common trap for marketers.
Bubani concluded: “Two thirds of marketers plan to increase their investment in creator content, where success is now less about reach and more about relevance: who opens up the best access to audiences, in a credible context and through stronger creative collaboration. We’ve shown that follower count doesn’t guarantee effective reach: more important is how creators help brands to communicate their meaningful difference to their audience.”
Download the 2026 Media Reactions report: kantar.com/campaigns/media-reactions.
Catch the digital launch: https://www.kantar.com/campaigns/media-reactions/webinar/.
About Media Reactions 2026
Kantar has been at the forefront of media experience and perception research for over 20 years. The Media Reactions 2026 report combines insights from both consumer and marketer studies to provide a comprehensive view of the current media landscape and is based on two surveys:
- 23,452 consumers in 33 markets: Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Canada, Chile, China, Colombia, Denmark, France, Germany, Hong Kong, India, Indonesia, Italy, Japan, Korea, KSA, Malaysia, Mexico, Netherlands, Norway, Peru, Philippines, Poland, Romania, Singapore, South Africa, Sweden, Thailand, Türkiye, UK, US, Vietnam, conducted between 3 July and 10 September 2026.
- 806 senior marketers (advertisers, agencies and media owners) globally conducted between 25 May and 21 July 2026.
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