As we begin the New Year, we spoke to industry leaders to reflect on the shifts that shaped 2025 and the forces expected to define 2026. For Babita Baruah, Chief Executive Officer, VML India, 2025 marked a decisive moment where creativity, technology and AI came together to deliver deeply human, emotionally resonant brand experiences.
Reflecting on the year gone by, she says, “In 2025, several clear trends stood out across creativity, business strategy and brand experience: The top trend in the advertising space was on Impactful Creative Solutions powered by technology and AI. The evolving relationship between algorithms, AI, and creativity. AI integration accelerated significantly, powering brand and business solutions. The focus is not just efficiency but use of AI to for human centricity and authenticity. Design for People and Emotional Drivers, Lead with questions and insights on consumer behaviour, and ensure that Brand Experiences are defined by human centric values where creativity, data, AI and technology worked together to create work that feel intuitive, human and emotionally resonant.”
Looking ahead, Baruah believes the next phase of growth will be defined by how people, platforms and partnerships evolve together. On the trends shaping 2026, she adds:
“The shift in the skillset mix in the industry and the human and technology stack find the complementary balance. The industry has mostly considered similar talent skills over the past years, with common hunting ground. With increasing use of technology, availability and accessibility of data and intelligence machine driven intervention of some workstreams, a quality outfit will be defined not by scale but strength and agility of solutions.
Brand Experience and Frictionless Customer Journeys define a brand. This is not a new trend but organisations with unified Connected brand solutions, where Brand Experience (BX), Customer Experience (CX) and Commerce come together to deliver seamless, end-to-end journeys will have a strong edge in creating growth led client agency partnerships, going well beyond marketing driven agendas alone.
Collaboration Vs Siloed Partners. Relationships in the industry will not limited to one partner alone, but a collaborative network of cross-discipline and cross-market teams and set ups. The ability to collaborate and yet continue to be experts in the specific domains will be key to success.”
(As told to Yash Bhatia)
