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 Amin Lakhani, President – Client Solutions, WPP Media – South Asia, 2025 marked a reset for the media industry, where scale alone stopped being enough and integrated, outcome-led thinking took centre stage.
Speaking about the year that passed by, Lakhani says, “2025 was a year of reset and recalibration for the media industry. Growth became harder to predict; attention fragmented further, and the old playbook of scale at any cost stopped working. What stood out was a clear shift toward integrated, business-outcome-led solutions. At WPP Media, the move to a unified operating model powered by WPP Open reflected this reality, using AI to simplify complexity, stitch together data, creativity, and media, and free up our teams to focus on judgment, culture, and consumer truth."
Looking at what will shape the coming year, he adds, “In 2026, three forces will shape the next phase of media growth. First, AI will move from experimentation to becoming the operating system. Platforms like WPP Open will connect briefly to outcome, enabling speed and scale while keeping human insight at the core. Second, attention will become the true currency, with brands investing across a collapsed funnel, rebuilding top-funnel memory structures alongside performance and commerce, especially through quick-commerce and retail media. Third, first-party data and privacy-by-design systems will shift from being ‘nice to have’ to non-negotiable, as compliance, trust, and intelligence converge. The winners will be brands that balance data with intuition, efficiency with creativity, and technology with culture."
(As told to Jennifer Thomas)
