Summary

Screendragon’s Marketing, AI and Automation Trends 2026  webinar brought together senior voices from across enterprise marketing, agencies, and technology to unpack what’s really changing – and what’s not- as AI moves from experimentation into operational reality. 

Hosted by Screendragon’s very own Anne Cogan, CMO, alongside John Briggs, CEO and Founder. The webinar combined first-hand market insights with practical lessons from organisations already embedding AI into their marketing operations. 

Agentic AI Moves from Theory to Practice 

Several contributors highlighted that while agentic AI was heavily discussed in 2025, few AI agents actually made it into production. 

John addressed this head-on, explaining that enterprise organisations are now moving beyond chat-based AI into agents that do work inside workflows – reviewing documents, localising assets, triggering approvals, and moving work forward automatically. 

The most successful agents, John noted, are not complex or generic. They are highly focused, with each agent having its own purpose within the work management ecosystem. For example, one agent will be solely created to write social media copy, adhering to brand guidelines, brand tone of voice and legal restrictions. The future state will see these agents embedded into existing systems with access to the right data, enabling them to produce the most value. 

René Affolter reinforced this shift, explaining that clients are now thinking in terms of intelligent workflows – deciding where AI genuinely adds value and where humans remain essential in the process. 

Nikki Angel added that AI is no longer experimental: it is becoming foundational, with organisations prioritising performance and outcomes over volume or novelty. 

Growth, Brand, and Governance Remain Non-Negotiable 

Despite the rapid technological change, Anne emphasised the core mandate of marketing has not changed: driving growth, proving value, and protecting the brand are still the top priority. 

As organisations and teams encourage the use of AI, John highlights the increased brand risk that comes with AI-generated content at scale. He stressed that governance must be incorporated at every level through structured framework of policies, processes to ensure content is accurate, brand-aligned, secure, and compliant with regulations. 

When governance is automated and embedded into how teams work, it becomes invisible to them and actually speeds up creativity by reducing rework and manual checks. 

This theme of AI governance resonated across the webinar: enterprises that treat governance as an afterthought will struggle to scale AI safely. 

2026 Marks the Start of the “Orchestration Decade” 

One of the webinar’s central predictions: orchestration – not tools – will define enterprise success in 2026. 

René described orchestration as the ability to connect processes, tools, data, and AI into cohesive flows that run end-to-end across the marketing ecosystem. 

Both Katie Elsey and Julia Arenson highlighted how many organisations underestimated the importance of foundational elements like clean data, centralised content repositories, and clear operating models. These are the issues they see consistently when early AI pilots failed to scale. 

AI cannot succeed at scale without orchestration. John states, that without the orchestration layer, organisations end up with disconnected pilots, duplicated effort, and broken workflows. The solution for large organisations will be to consolidate tools and processes into one orchestration platform. 

Content Becomes an Industrialised Supply Chain 

Emma Turner, of IHAR, described a clear shift away from single “hero assets” toward modular, dynamic creative systems, where content is designed for reuse, adaptation, and scale. 

The analogy used by Fergus Ashe, is of a manufacturing facility, where each human and agent will have defined roles within the content supply chain: 

• Humans focus on original creative direction and strategy 

• AI agents act like “robots” in a production line 

• Content moves through a governed supply chain 

John added a critical enterprise lens, warning that cost and sustainability are often overlooked. Running AI at production scale is expensive, and organisations must carefully choose the right models for the right tasks. 

He also introduced the concept of AI drift – where models degrade over time if brand guidelines, data, and evaluation processes are not continuously updated. 

Hybrid Teams Are Now the Default 

Both Dan Hunt and Emma noted that hybrid models – combining in-house teams and external agencies – are becoming standard rather than exceptional. In-house teams will maintain brand knowledge and control, while agencies provide scale and specialist expertise. 

John added that the new hybrid model, will include humans and agents working together, often invisibly. When systems and workflows are well-designed agents will reduce the need for manual prompting and complete more of the work autonomously. 

Keeping Up With the Pace of Change in an AI World 

Creative operations will be one of the most impacted areas with the introduction of AI. Dan explains that organisations are struggling to keep up with the pace of change when it comes to adopting AI and incorporating new tools and process into workflows. There is a need for teams and individuals to upskill and gain an understanding of the tools, and where they are best deployed to maximise operational efficiency. 

Trust, Measurement, and Continuous Evaluation 

In one of the most technical – but critical – sections of the webinar, John addressed why many AI initiatives lost executive trust in 2025. 

The issue wasn’t AI capability but came down to the lack of evaluation. 

John explained that enterprises must define success metrics before deploying agents, continuously measure outputs, and feed results back into the system to prevent drift and maintain quality. 

Trust, he noted, comes from knowing an agent is working – and being able to prove it. 

Final Takeaway: AI Delivers Value When It’s Orchestrated 

Across all speakers, one message was consistent: AI does not create value on its own. 

Value emerges when: 

• Agents are purpose-built 

• Data is clean and connected 

• Governance is embedded 

• Humans remain in the loop 

• Everything is orchestrated through intelligent workflows 

As Anne concluded, the organisations that win in 2026 will not be those experimenting the most – but those operationalising AI with clarity, control, and confidence. 

Watch the Webinar On-Demand 

To hear directly from the full panel, watch the webinar here: 
👉 Marketing, AI & Automation Trends 2026 – On Demand 

A big thank you to our contributors for this webinar:  

• Fergus Ashe, CCO at Screendragon 

• Dan Hunt, COE Lead Creative Automation at ICP 

• Nikki Angel, Martech and Digital Transformation at ICP 

• René Atloffer Managing Director at GateB 

• Katie Elsey, Regional Lead EMEA at Flock 

• Emma Turner, Founder at IHAR 

• Julia Arenson, Creative & Marketing Orchestration Leader at IHAR