With the New Year approaching, social media is filled with yearly roundups, annual highlights, and the ever-anticipated Spotify Wrapped. The lead up to New Year can be a great way for brands, companies and agencies to highlight their achievements and reflect on strategy, but it’s also a time to look ahead at what 2026 may bring.

The digital landscape is evolving faster than ever, reshaping how brands communicate, create and respond in real time. However, opportunity comes with scrutiny, and navigating the digital space requires both creativity and caution. Digital success is not just about keeping up with trends, it’s about evolving alongside them.

Here are our top five digital trends that we expect to see in 2026 and our thoughts on navigating these trends into the New Year.

1. AI in the digital landscape

AI is already becoming fundamental to the digital infrastructure. While it still bears some controversies, AI offers a range of benefits for increasing workflow, hyper-personalisation and identifying audiences.

2025 saw many high-profile uses of AI in the comms sector. Most recently, McDonald’s received backlash after producing an advert for the festive season using entirely AI. However, the people behind the advert weren’t entirely open to honouring the backlash, stating they hardly slept, generating thousands of takes and shaping them into a polished advert. ”AI didn’t make this film. We did.”

Ownership and transparency on the use of AI is important and we expect to see more brands overtly using AI for impact and creativity in 2026. We also expect to see an increased level of AI sophistication and more tools coming to users, with a greater sense of acceptance on AI use across all sectors.

2. Mini-media

Mini-media is where digital content is written and shared on small self-publishing platforms, such as Substack. Mini-media outlets offer an opportunity to build a personal brand using your own tone of voice, which can showcase authenticity and generate trust from your audiences.

Mini-media enables a personalised perspective, sharing a brand’s key messaging in an approachable, relatable and genuine way. Where readers have a choice to subscribe to your newsletter or profile, audiences feel more autonomous in their decision to engage with your brand, therefore making the engagement more genuine overall.

Additionally, leading the conversation in the creative space can show you are engaged, passionate and proactive, highlighting your expertise in a certain area.

3. Short form content – the series

TikTok has inevitably dominated the digital space for a substantial amount of time as the primary short-form media app. Millions of creators have found success and traction on the app, including a growing number of corporate businesses and brands who are now reaching their demographic with insightful commentary and authentic on-the-ground content.

For 2026 we expect to see a continued rise in series format content on social media, creating a sense of stability for your audience. Repeated visuals or messaging cements an iconography for you as a creator and viewers can recognise your work, feeling reassured they know who and what they are watching.

A series is also a great way to develop a relationship with your audience. Breaking an idea down into parts or episodes allows for longer discussion on specific topic and a deeper understanding of who you are. Audiences follow creators they want to get to know, and a series is a useful tool to allow viewers to build that personal relationship with you.

4. Webinars

In a post pandemic society, hybrid and remote working has become integrated in modern work-life, with some roles functioning significantly differently than five or ten years ago. It comes with many benefits: less cost on travel, no commute, and greater work-life balance for employees.

Workshops and seminars have long been a progressive tool in sharing expertise across a variety of industries and sectors, and webinars are the work from home equivalent. Webinars enable that same level of teaching, collaboration and learning but it can be done from anywhere. It does not limit attendance to location or even time. Webinars have evolved with the world, and they are certainly a tool to look out for in the fast-changing work structure.

With the evolution of AI in the workplace, webinars offer the ability to share step by step learning to a global audience in 2026. Online learning overall is becoming more integrated and webinars are a great way to digitally offer learning accessibly and efficiently.

5. Immediate crisis management

The pace at which the digital world moves can sometimes be hard to keep up with in real time. A crisis is no longer ‘tomorrow’s fish and chip paper’, it lingers online and can continue to resurface through social media sharing.

This past summer, we had the likes of the Coldplay CEO kiss-cam controversy which has been recreated, turned into a meme and reacted to heavily in comment sections across multiple social media platforms. With the crisis left untouched or with too much time passed, social media can take control, spread fake news, and twist headlines.

In such an accelerated climate, crisis management is having to become immediate. Noise from the global pool of users has the potential to build a collective opinion from the ground up and that is only going to get quicker. Responding to a crisis, controlling the situation, is evolving with its infrastructure.

2025 has also highlighted the need for essential crisis planning, for all eventualities. This year brought the costliest cyber-attack in UK history, on Jaguar Land Rover. Other companies such as M&S have also suffered cyber-attacks, highlighting the importance of a solid crisis plan, prepared and agreed in advance, as we begin 2026 feeling more in control.

Conclusion

The new year brings an evolution within the digital space, working structure and online relationships. Trends are quick, but they can last. Sometimes the whole word can be participating in a trend, it could last for a week, but the vastness in which it spreads is memorable. Many of these are already integrated trends in our digital landscape, but the key is to evolve with it.

The end of the year is a great way to reflect on strategy and look ahead to the upcoming year. Speak to our digital team about how we can meet your goals to stay ahead of the curve in 2026.