In 2026, we’re moving from “AI as a feature to AI as infrastructure.” That shift, according to Monks’ executive vice-president of global media accounts Linda Cronin, is redefining what brands expect from media and how they measure success. When AI becomes foundational rather than experimental, optimization alone stops being enough. What matters instead is whether brands are built to listen, respond and act in real time.
For Cronin, that pressure is already reshaping client behavior. “2026 is the year that they’re moving from constant piloting to actually scaling those pilots,” she says. “It doesn’t mean that they are experimenting any less, but really focusing on the pilots being actionable and making sure that they are reaping the benefits from the learnings and the insights that they’re getting and scaling that up this year.”
As AI embeds itself across platforms and channels, “creative has become the primary lever for performance,” Cronin explains. “We need more creative, of course we do. But it needs to be more relevant creative.” That relevance, she argues, comes from understanding not just who consumers are, but “what’s important to them in their lives.”
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The challenge is speed. “Modern culture and media are moving so fast that it’s hard to keep up with humans alone,” says Cronin. In a world where a single content cycle can define a brand overnight, listening has become a competitive advantage. “Those brands that are built for real time… will capture and grow their audiences 30% faster than the competition.”
Crucially, that shift doesn’t mean sacrificing long-term value. “You don’t want to trade lifetime value for short-term gains,” Cronin says. “Brands need to be set up to win both in the immediate and the long term.” In that context, she sees media evolving into something more direct. “I absolutely believe that media will be more direct commercial signals,” she adds – even if many brands aren’t ready yet.
That same idea of media and experience as signals rather than outputs underpins how Monks is thinking about brand experience. For Jordan Cuddy, executive vice-president and global head of experience, AI’s real impact is making participation possible at scale.
“When we start to think about the consumer and brand value exchange, what we’re really talking about is data – and the need for more, and better contextually-rich, owned by the brand, first party data.” Cuddy says. “AI is the tool that parses that data.”
For decades, she argues, brands have relied on one-way communication. “Consumers have been mainly talked at,” she says. What’s changed is the ability to listen – and act – at speed and scale, able to implement their feedback much faster.
That shift is fundamentally changing how brands think about creativity and ROI. “We used to go, what’s the great creative idea? And then we’d say, how did we do?” explains Cuddy. “But now we start with what data do we think could translate into growth, innovation, better experience or product… and that’s become the new ROI.”
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Looking ahead, her advice to brands is clear. “ROI is data,” she says. Not impressions or surface-level metrics, but “contextually rich data sets as being the return on investment for brand experience.”
Taken together, Cronin and Cuddy point to the same conclusion: as AI becomes infrastructure, listening becomes the operating system. Media and experience are no longer just moments to optimize, they are real-time indicators of trust, intent and growth, for brands built to hear what consumers are telling them.
Watch both interviews with Cronin and Cuddy in full – including how brands like Burger King are using AI-powered participation to turn consumer input into real commercial signals.