Stephanie Paterik

AI is gaining influence over consumer decisions long before it commands a meaningful share of the digital economy. But it’s not resetting the market: Existing advantages in audience, traffic, trust, and transactions still matter. This deck covers: How AI is changing consumer behavior, marketing, and the path to purchase Where established advantages persist across the digital economy How marketers should act on AI now

When our editorial team prepared last year's Outlook issue, we started with a list of questions: What would the future of work look like? Would consumer habits change long-term? Would media spending rebound? Less than a year into the Covid-19 pandemic, many of those questions remained unanswerable. This year is different.

As Kristen Cavallo and I flashed our vaccine cards and pulled down our masks at Bryant Park Grill a few blocks away from Madison Avenue in New York last month, I couldn't help but marvel at how things change. Four years ago, I was leading our coverage of the #MeToo movement, which led to shake-ups across the advertising industry, and Cavallo was stepping into her first days on the job as CEO of The Martin Agency, charged with turning it in a new direction.