As we head into 2026, most leadership teams are doing what they should be doing: scanning the horizon for trends that could reshape their markets. New technologies, shifting regulations, and changing buyer behaviors still matter. In some industries, a single trend will define the year.

But something has changed.

The challenge isn’t that trends are less important. It’s that they rarely act alone. Increasingly, success or failure is determined by how multiple forces collide — and whether companies understand the second-order effects that follow.

That’s the lens that matters most looking forward: not trends versus strategy, but trends plus the discipline to understand how they reshape stakeholder behavior, decision pathways, and competitive dynamics.

1. Medical Marketers: Digital Health Is Changing Who Shapes Care Decisions in 2026

Digital health is often framed as a continuation of what accelerated during COVID: telemedicine, remote monitoring, and wearable devices. Heading into 2026, the more important shift is not technological — it’s structural.

Wearables, at-home diagnostics, and AI-driven insights are giving individuals unprecedented visibility into their own health. At the same time, regulators are becoming more comfortable with broader data sources. Provider shortages are also pushing care outside traditional clinical settings.

The result is a very different influence map.

Patients, physicians, device manufacturers, regulators, insurers, and even employers now shape care decisions in ways that no longer follow a linear model. Information doesn’t flow cleanly from provider to patient. It moves in multiple directions, often before a clinician is involved at all.

What to do about it:
Medical marketers should stop treating digital health as a product or channel trend. Instead, they should map how influence is shifting across stakeholders. Who shapes prevention decisions now? Who determines which data is trusted? Where do recommendations originate — and where do they stall?

Explicit stakeholder or influence mapping helps teams anticipate second-order effects before they show up as surprises. These include slower adoption, unexpected resistance, or competitors gaining traction by aligning with a different part of the ecosystem.

2. For All B2B Marketers: Why “Best Fit” Will Beat “Best Known” as Micro-Segmentation Becomes Real

For years, marketers talked about one-to-one marketing and hyper-personalization. Execution lagged reality. Data was fragmented. Customization was expensive. Segmentation stayed coarse.

That changes as AI-driven recommendation systems increasingly sit between buyers and sellers.

Whether it’s procurement platforms, internal enterprise tools, or AI assistants advising buyers, recommendations are now shaped by context. Category matters less. Fit matters more.

What to do about it:
This is where micro-segmentation moves from theory to necessity. Companies need to be explicit about:

• Which buyer contexts they serve best?
• What signals indicate strong fit?
• How offerings and content vary across those micro-segments.

This isn’t about creating infinite personas. It’s about making clear, defensible choices — and ensuring those choices are visible to systems trained to recommend best fit, not best known.

3. For Leaders in Talent-Intensive Businesses: Workforce Shifts Will Redefine the Customer Experience in 2026

Workforce disruption is not new, and it’s not going away. Automation, AI, and demographic shifts are already reshaping roles in hospitality, logistics, financial services, and healthcare. That pace will only accelerate into 2026.

What’s often missing from the discussion is where the real strategic risk lies.

The risk isn’t that jobs change. It’s that companies fail to anticipate how changes in labor availability and skill mix alter the customer experience.

Across financial services, insurance, and healthcare support, AI is automating first-line interactions — intake, triage, eligibility checks, and basic service. Customers often get answers faster. But confidence and trust erode when situations don’t fit clean categories or require judgment and reassurance. Issues escalate later, more frustrated, and at higher cost.

Some companies are responding by redesigning the workforce around this reality. Instead of removing people from the process, they are creating hybrid roles — AI-assisted advisors, care coordinators, and escalation specialists. Their job is to interpret, contextualize, and intervene where automation falls short.

Healthcare makes this especially visible. Fewer physicians, more data, and more patient-driven insights are driving demand for roles like care navigators and concierge models. These roles translate information into action.

What to do about it:
Instead of treating labor as an internal constraint, leaders should scenario-plan how workforce shifts change the experience they deliver. This reframes workforce planning as a market strategy question, not just an HR one.

The Strategic Takeaway for 2026

Looking ahead to 2026, trends absolutely matter. Some will surprise us. Others will over- or under-deliver.

But the companies that consistently outperform won’t be the ones that simply spot trends early. They’ll be the ones that ask better questions sooner:

• How does this trend change who influences decisions?
• What second-order effects should we expect if it accelerates — or stalls?
• Which strategic options do we need ready before clarity arrives?

That’s where tools like stakeholder mapping, segmentation, and scenario planning earn their keep. Not by predicting the future — but by helping teams prepare to act when the future makes itself known.