DEPT® Trends 2026: The Age of Acceleration
Registration has now closed for this event, but you can join the livestream here. PW: #madebydept.
See you there!
If 2025 was the year of adaptation, 2026 is the year everything hits fast-forward.
AI’s gone from headline to hard drive, quietly running things while we pretend we’re still in control. Culture moves at the speed of a scroll. Consumers expect it all: relevance; purpose; speed; and a conscience.
The world isn’t waiting. So why should growth?
This year at DEPT® Trends, we’re digging into what happens when acceleration becomes the default setting.
We’ve pulled together some of the sharpest thinkers across DEPT® (the people working every day with the world’s fastest-moving brands) to share what they’re seeing, building, and breaking in real time:
- How AI is changing how decisions get made
- How media is mutating faster than we can measure it
- How creators are building worlds while brands are still writing briefs
- How loyalty is being redefined by value, not vanity
- How growth itself is being reinvented
Because in a world this fast, business growth isn’t something you chase; it’s something you invent.
That’s growth invention: creativity, technology, and data conspiring to build what’s next before anyone else does.
So join us for some sharp takes, honest debate, and a (virtual) room full of people who like to move a little faster.
Whether you’re a brand leader, marketer, technologist, or creative, this event will help you define what you need to do now and next to unlock customer growth, faster.
THE PROGRAM
16:00 GMT
Speakers
Keynote
TOURING THE 2025 ZEITGEIST
Customers are now moving at a speed faster than companies can react. Join us for a rapid-fire rewind of the breakthroughs, shifts, and surprises that shaped marketing, tech, and culture in 2025, before we hit fast-forward to what’s next.
16:10 GMT
Speakers
Keynote
REBOOTING COMMERCE: LESS HYPE, MORE HUMAN
The idea of a “shopperless” or “zero-click” future may be overstated. While agent-to-agent commerce is technically possible, it overlooks a fundamental truth: people like personality, and they like to shop. The retail resurgence shows that shopping is emotional, experiential, and rooted in identity. And the next era of commerce won’t be defined by automation, but by preference for brands that people actively seek out and choose again and again.
16:20 GMT
Speakers
Keynote
IS AI INVENTING GROWTH OR EMPOWERING IT?
AI has quietly moved from breakthrough to background – powering decisions, negotiations, and experiences across every touchpoint. The question now isn’t whether you’re using AI, but whether it’s actually scaling growth. We’ll unpack what it really takes to embed AI and data into the core of your business. Not as hype; but as a system for velocity. From personalisation to prediction to creative automation, the brands winning today are those treating AI as infrastructure, not innovation theatre. Because AI isn’t the future of growth… it’s already the fabric of it.
16:30 GMT
Speakers
Keynote
ACTIVATING THE NEW ERA OF MEDIA
Platforms have multiplied, retail media has boomed, attention has splintered, and algorithms decide what gets seen; mutating the media landscape faster than it can be measured. Connecting with audiences when there is a sea of options at our disposal, might now be a matter of teaching the machines to choose you. Sam has the answers.
16:40 GMT
Speakers
Keynote
INFLUENCE, UNBUNDLED
Consumers aren’t just tuning out ads, they’re bored of influencer content that feels like one. The brands winning now, get it: influence isn’t about selling, it’s about belonging. Partnering with influencers to make content that’s unfiltered, unexpected, and real… The stuff people actually stop their scroll for. This session unpacks how to win in today’s creator economy, where authenticity beats polish and influence is culture, not media.
16:50 GMT
Speakers
Keynote
STOP CAMPAIGNING, START CONNECTING: THE NEW RELATIONSHIP ENGINE
In an era of fragile loyalty, points and perks no longer build lasting relationships. Loyalty is an outcome, and CRM is your relationship growth engine. Focus must shift from managing campaigns to building trust (and driving revenues) through orchestrated customer journeys; where your systems anticipate needs, and deliver the right experience before the customer even asks.
MEET THE SPEAKERS
