2026 Predictions: Agents, AI Decisioning, & The Techstack
Making Sense of Martech · Juan Mendoza + Jacqueline Freedman
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Show Notes
As 2025 closes out, Juan and Jacqueline team up with Keanu Taylor, The Martech Weekly's Head of Research, to read the tea leaves on what 2026 has in store for marketing technology.
Their forecast is a "make or break" year in which the winners won't be the loudest early adopters, but the teams whose data and operating habits are clean enough for AI actually to stick. Keanu predicts a sharper split between the AI "haves" and "have-nots," with organizational readiness acting like gravity on every agent, model, and workflow.
The bet: 2026 will expose which stacks are built for decisions, not demos — and which ones were never ready for either.
Timestamps
01:08 ExactTarget's 25th Birthday/Anniversary
03:54 Prediction 1: AI Agent Adoption and Readiness
10:35 Prediction 2: The Rise of AI Decisioning Silos
21:48 Prediction 3: CDP and CEP/ESP Stack Consolidation
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