On one hand, it feels like retail media has grown up a lot in the past year. On the other hand, if 2025 was the year of "in-store" and "CTV," 2026 appears to be the year of "in-store" and "CTV" — with a dash of AI on the side.
Granted, the conversations have evolved (it's had a year to do so), but the journey we took in 2025 appears to have been more exploratory than executional.
And I wager that's because we spent a lot of last year contemplating "what will happen" instead of driving the conversation to "how to make it happen" (I'm guilty of this too).
My hope in 2026 is that we spend a lot more time on the "how," as a jumping-off point for the not-so-inevitable maturing of our space.
And for what it's worth, my bet for 2026 is that the "how" will in part be driven by a strengthening of our intelligence. Connectivity becomes the real competitive advantage. As systems, tools, and data layers finally get stitched together, retailers will move beyond fragmented reporting and campaign-level optimization toward a more complete intelligence layer. That intelligence — grounded in how merchandising, media, marketing, operations, and customer behavior intersect — is what will unlock better decision-making at a business level. Not faster decisions, but smarter ones.
But without further ado, I give you my favorite retail media predictions for 2026.
Prediction No. 01Performance myopia — Andrew Lipsman.
Andrew Lipsman is one of the few people in our industry who can will predictions into reality. And he does so with an obsessive passion for what he believes our industry needs in order to grow up.
In his "Top 10 Retail Media Predictions for 2026," he talks about "performance myopia" and how it can "lead to over-reliance on ROAS and other short-term performance KPIs." He doubles down on how we'll all realize that MMM models are "underestimating the value of retail media" (finally).
And most importantly, he reminds retailers that their competitive advantage is in their first-party data — that retailers in 2026 will reckon with the fact that "they've given up this advantage and enabled their own disintermediation."
Prediction No. 02Structural disconnect — Sarah Marzano.
If Andrew is willing predictions into existence, Sarah Marzano is reshaping how we think about the gaps — and what those gaps actually are (with the coolest new pair of glasses).
In 2025, Sarah — in partnership with EMARKETER and Bain & Company — highlighted the structural disconnect between marketing, merchandising, media, and store operations as a lack of clear ownership and a lack of buy-in. Those challenges are now at a point where they're hindering growth.
2026, according to EMARKETER analyst Max Willens, is a "year of organizational evolution."
Prediction No. 03An unstoppable force — Colin Lewis & Andy Murray.
If you want to be inspired, check out Colin Lewis's annual "Retail Media Trends Report" — a comprehensive view of how our space will evolve, broken down into a series of LinkedIn posts for which he provides no hashtag, therefore making it really hard to summarize.
Number 4 on the list is my favorite: "Retail Media may be the 'trojan horse' for transformation for brands, retailers and agencies." In it he says, "Stop talking about change. Instead talk about the consumer and adapting for growth."
In 2025 I was inspired by leaders like Dollar General Media Network's Austin Leonard in leading this type of change by example. Austin tells a story publicly that elevates their position in retail media while respecting the foundations of Dollar General and the people who operate it:
Colin also ends his trends by quoting the legendary Andy Murray from 2025: "retail media is an unstoppable force." It's something to remind ourselves moving into 2026 — how impactful this could and should be if we keep evolving.
Prediction No. 04A marketing problem, not a tech problem — Kiri Masters.
One of the more subtle but important predictions for 2026 comes from Kiri Masters' perspective that retail media doesn't actually have a technology problem — it has a marketing problem.
As Michele Roney puts it, "Go-to-market strategy and demand generation will also play a pivotal role in 2026, because networks will need to bring strong propositions to potential advertisers."
Kiri doesn't frame this as a call for louder promotion or better PR. Instead, she points to a more fundamental shift: retail media is no longer a retailer side hustle — it's a B2B media business — and most organizations haven't yet internalized what that really means.
Her argument is rooted in a simple inversion: retailers have decades of muscle memory marketing to consumers, but retail media requires them to market to brands. That means understanding what brand teams care about, helping them win, and earning trust over time.
Prediction No. 05The customer relationship — James Taylor.
James Taylor — who famously reignited the "Trade vs. Shopper vs. Brand" conversation this year — has a good take on the "fluid integration with the same algorithms powering the rest of the customer experience."
His overall view is that our industry needs to move from "legacy keyword, segment-based, and manual merchandising" to something more automated, more connected, and focused on driving the right message to the right customer. The outcome isn't overly novel, but he argues that technology is finally catching up to a place where we can help retailers get there.
What he's asking is for retailers and brands to "trust the machine."
Prediction No. 06The test phase is ending — Don Brett.
"For years, retail media felt experimental… as you would expect, that phase is ending." Don "eCommerce" Brett wrote about how eCommerce is not a project, it's a P&L — and in his posts over the last month he's making the case that retail media has to follow a similar path.
2026 marks the year retail media stops being "something retailers do" and becomes a core operating capability of retail itself — on par with pricing, merchandising, and supply chain. The remaining challenge is execution: how this gets embedded structurally, repeatably, and accountably inside retail organizations.
I loved Wendy Salisko's comment on this:
Prediction No. 07Retiring the term "retail media" — Matthew Fantazier.
My favorite prediction from Matthew Fantazier is the argument that the next phase of retail media isn't about adding more products — it's about reframing what retailers are actually selling.
By calling for the retirement of the term "retail media," Matt is pointing to a deeper issue: retailers are collapsing fundamentally different assets into a single category, and in doing so, underselling what's truly unique about their business.
The opportunity for non-Amazon retailers isn't to build better media networks — it's to reclaim value by connecting first-party data, owned inventory (especially in-store), and measurement into a single, outcome-driven offering.
Recently Christine Foster — who has a proven working model for Matt's vision — wrote a great article on "the 5th quarter," highlighting the idea that the advertising pullback after December 26 creates a rare and underutilized opportunity. When brands go quiet, those that stay on the gas can gain share, influence new habits, and insert themselves into shoppers' emerging routines for the year ahead.
It's a microcosm of a much bigger point: retail media's real power isn't just in monetizing predictable seasonal spikes — it's in understanding when influence actually matters. The moments that shape behavior don't always align neatly with retail calendars, campaign flights, or media plans, and spotting those moments requires context that only retailers truly have.
Prediction No. 08Broken inputs = broken outputs — Marie-Clare Puffett.
Marie-Clare Puffett from IAB Europe is approaching standardization and harmonization from a different lens next year:
Agreed. Her team — in partnership with leaders like Patricia Grundmann and Jason Wescott — is driving the charge to not only train the market but up-level some of the underlying technical foundations that will allow us to get to greater harmonization.
So let's get to work.
I think we'll look back on 2026 as the most consequential year in retail media — the one that determines the viability of this space for the rest of the market. We have a lot of work to do, and how we get there is going to need to be a joint effort across our industry.
Subscribe to the series. Share this if it resonated. And as always — comment, debate, push back. That's how we all get smarter.