Cro Metrics Releases 2026 AI and Marketing Predictions: Customer Journeys Split as Consumers Decide Between AI Delegation and Authentic Personal Experience

Two decades of digital journey optimization show how brands must adapt to AI-driven experiences while preserving human connection and trust

Cro Metrics, a digital marketing agency specializing in digital consumer journey optimization, released its top predictions for AI and marketing in 2026. Drawing on thousands of tests and deep expertise in connected digital experiences, the predictions reveal how brands must fundamentally reshape their approach to serve both human audiences and AI systems while navigating unprecedented complexity in customer journeys.

"What we're seeing across almost every industry is the same challenge: as consumers' usage of AI accelerates – across information, inspiration, and imagination – it's fundamentally changing how they discover and connect with brands, faster than most teams anticipated," said Gwen Hammes, Co-CEO at Cro Metrics. "An estimated $750 billion in consumer spending will be guided by AI-powered search by 2028 and the shift is already underway. The brands that win will invest in both directions: automation for efficiency and authenticity for differentiation."

Cro Metrics' top 8 AI and marketing predictions for 2026

1. Dual Optimization of Owned Channels Becomes Critical Competitive Advantage

Owned digital channels require a fundamental shift in design philosophy as the customer discovery landscape bifurcates. With 50% of Google searches already featuring AI summaries (projected to exceed 75% before 2028) and half of consumers now intentionally seeking AI-powered search engines, websites and content must serve two distinct audiences: human visitors seeking authentic experiences and large language models acting as information gatekeepers. Brands that fail to optimize risk 20-50% traffic declines from traditional channels.

Marketing teams must develop parallel optimization strategies combining human-centric design with machine-readable structured data, clear information hierarchies, and accessibility. Organizations must build experiences for humans and optimize for AI, recognizing that these two audiences have fundamentally different needs yet both control access to consumers.

2. Human-Certified Content Becomes a Trust Marker

As AI-generated content proliferates at unprecedented speed, the market will see the emergence of human quality assurance roles specifically for AI outputs. When stakes are high, organizations will implement fact-checking, verification, and certification processes to validate AI-generated content. This will give rise to designations like "Human certified" as trust markers in the marketplace, with 80% of enterprise marketers predicted to establish dedicated content authenticity functions by 2027.

Marketing organizations must establish new quality control infrastructure and potentially create entirely new roles focused on AI content verification. Teams need to determine which content categories require human certification based on risk assessment. High-stakes content like financial advice, healthcare information, or legally binding communications will demand rigorous human oversight, while lower-stakes content may proceed with lighter review.

3. Consumers Draw Deliberate Lines Between AI Delegation and Personal Experience

Category-specific behavioral patterns will emerge as consumers become increasingly deliberate about what tasks they delegate to AI versus what they choose to experience themselves. LLM-driven purchasing will grow for low-stakes and commodity items where convenience outweighs the need for personal selection. Think restocking paper towels versus selecting a gift. However, poor AI recommendations will create return and customer service implications, raising critical questions around accountability when AI makes incorrect purchasing decisions on behalf of consumers.

Brands must understand these delegation patterns through ongoing behavioral research and consumer journey experience analysis. The customer journey is no longer uniform and it now branches based on what consumers trust AI to handle versus what they insist on controlling themselves. Marketers who map these boundaries will design experiences that meet consumers where they actually want AI involvement, rather than forcing automation where it erodes trust.

4. AI Disrupts Customer Journeys Faster Than Predicted While Creating New Complex Marketing Responsibilities

AI will disrupt traditional online customer journeys more rapidly than anticipated. Research and purchasing processes are becoming seamlessly integrated into LLMs, bypassing traditional website funnels and in some cases eliminating site visits entirely. The scale of change is already measurable: retail site traffic from chatbot interactions increased 1,950% year-over-year during Cyber Monday 2024, while 44% of consumers now designate AI-powered search as their primary information source.

The rapid adoption of LLMs has transformed AI into simultaneously an enabling technology, an additional audience segment, and a distribution channel. Marketing organizations now face this three-dimensional challenge:

1. implementing AI tools for their own operations
2. optimizing content for AI consumption through structured data and machine-readable formats, and
3. ensuring discoverability through AI-powered search interfaces.

Organizations that optimize for AI-driven discovery while strengthening cart and checkout experiences through cross-selling and upselling, combined with robust lifecycle marketing for repeat purchases, will achieve the strongest results. This complexity explains why only 14% of practitioners can now deliver exceptional digital customer experiences, down from 25% just one year ago.

5. In-Person Moments and Authenticity Become Critical Differentiators

As AI-generated content saturates digital channels, in-person moments and authentic human experiences will become massive differentiators in marketing. A third of consumers are predicted to opt for offline over online brand experiences in 2026, driven by desires for richer sensory interactions that digital channels cannot replicate. The exodus from digital-only engagement is substantial: 50% of consumers are expected to limit social media due to perceived quality decay, misinformation, and bot saturation.

In-person moments and authentic human experiences will become massive differentiators as AI-generated content saturates digital channels. Marketing teams must resist the temptation to automate everything just because they can. Not all content should be AI-generated. Not all experiences should remain digital-only. Organizations should audit their customer journey to identify which moments benefit most from human connection and authentic content, then protect those experiences. Some touchpoints gain value precisely because they remain human.

6. AI Agentic Workflows Begin Integration into Marketing Operations

AI agentic workflows will establish their role in workplace productivity and efficiency, though they will not yet be the comprehensive solution AI companies promise. Marketing teams will increasingly embrace agentic AI and more autonomous automation, but 2026 will remain a learning year characterized by experimentation and iteration rather than immediate full-scale transformation.

Marketing orgs should start with repetitive, high-volume tasks like report generation, competitive monitoring, or content repurposing before tackling complex strategic work. The teams that will lead in 2027 and beyond are those using 2026 to understand what AI agents do well and where human judgment remains essential.

7. Predictive Analytics Enables True Personalization

Predictive analytics will continue improving in accuracy and reliability. Better targeting predictions will enable the one-to-one marketing outcomes that have long eluded most marketers. This advancement will allow for more precise customer engagement and personalization at scale.

Marketing teams could finally close the gap between personalization promise and delivery. Moving beyond demographic segments to behavioral predictions that drive revenue: likelihood to purchase, churn risk, lifetime value. Organizations that commit to the data infrastructure and testing discipline will prove incremental value.

8. Generational Divides in AI Trust Require Specific Customer Experience Strategies

AI adoption will vary significantly by audience segment, with age being a particularly strong differentiator. Nearly half of consumers under 45 welcome virtual shopping assistants that proactively add items to their carts, while acceptance among older demographics remains much lower.

Marketing teams must extend their persona frameworks beyond traditional digital marketing to include AI trust and preference. The same segmentation rigor applied to channel preference, content consumption, and purchase behavior now applies to how consumers want to interact with AI. Consider developing customer journey options that reflect varying levels of AI comfort and trust across your personas: some consumers expect conversational commerce and AI-native interactions, while others value traditional paths with human customer service. Forcing consumers into AI-mediated experiences they don't trust will likely drive abandonment. Failing to offer AI conveniences where consumers expect them makes brands feel outdated. AI comfort has become a core behavioral dimension worth including in persona frameworks.

About Cro Metrics

Cro Metrics is a digital marketing agency on a mission to redefine growth for organizations and brands through unparalleled digital experiences that inspire action and deliver tangible business results. With nearly two decades of experimentation and optimization expertise, Cro Metrics specializes in digital journey and conversion rate optimization, AI-powered growth intelligence through its proprietary Iris™ platform, and integrated marketing strategies that connect human experience with technical precision. The agency serves enterprise clients seeking to drive measurable business outcomes through rigorous testing, behavioral science, and connected consumer journeys. For more information, visit crometrics.com.

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"What we're seeing across almost every industry is the same challenge: as consumers' usage of AI accelerates, it's fundamentally changing how they discover and connect with brands, faster than most teams anticipated," Gwen Hammes, Co-CEO at Cro Metrics.