2026: the era of creative boldness on social media
Design Director
Predicting social media trends is never easy, given how rapidly the sector is evolving. Social commerce, social SEO, micro-influencers… Everything is on the table. But if there is one certainty for 2026, it is that social media will enter a new era: one in which brands will have to rediscover creative boldness to stand out in a saturated environment now disrupted by AI.
The battle for attention
In 2025, the rollout of Andromeda, Meta’s new AI-powered advertising algorithm, marked a paradigm shift: the era of complex campaigns with ultra-segmented targeting is over. From now on, performance no longer depends on targeting, but on creativity. Brands must increase the number of creative assets and angles per campaign to capture attention.
However, in a saturated environment where everyone scrolls through around 90 metres of content a day, brands no longer have a choice: they must be bold or they will be invisible.
Paradoxically, it is precisely at a time when creativity is more essential than ever that we are entering an era of creative fatigue. Many brands are following the same playbook, the same trends, the same aesthetics… making content virtually interchangeable.
This is therefore not a crisis of creativity, but a crisis of differentiation.
Towards more ambitious and culturally relevant storytelling
After years dominated by the aesthetic of raw authenticity, some brands are now setting themselves apart by adopting more conceptual and artistic aesthetics, and more written and ambitious narratives, verging on the cinematic. We no longer think in terms of overly rigid editorial pillars, but are developing a brand personality that resonates culturally, capable of embodying a unique perspective.
The Ordinary’s recent ‘The Periodic Fable’ campaign, or the recent statements from Rains, Burberry and Gentle Monster, are good examples of this.
But creation, and especially the production of social videos, comes at a cost. Social media still suffers from the myth that it is a free or secondary channel. Yet it is an investment: you have to test, iterate, take risks and allow time for a brand’s territory to take root. This is all the more crucial as it is Gen Z’s playground: they are the ones who decide, in real time, whether your brand is cool or not. Underestimating your social media presence means running the risk of brand preference eroding over the long term, even as new entrants do not hesitate to invest heavily to establish themselves.
The AI dilemma
This is where creative AI comes in. By 2026, it will continue to establish itself as the miracle solution to meeting this demand for creative boldness. But the signs already point to a dilemma: on the one hand, creative AI is improving at an impressive rate and everything suggests it will become increasingly undetectable (hello Nano Banana Pro). And yet, let’s not kid ourselves: despite what we might read here and there, video AI is still noticeable. The results all too often resemble computer-generated imagery or cheap anime.
On the other hand, we are seeing growing opposition, even the beginnings of a rejection of AI-generated content. The mixed reactions to Coca-Cola’s recent AI-generated Christmas advert are a case in point. Some internet users have even called for a boycott of Guess after the brand used an AI-generated model in an advert, denouncing the use of AI as something that destroys jobs and promotes an aesthetic deemed ‘fake’.
What if, paradoxically, 2026 marked the beginning of a return to human creativity?
In an environment saturated with AI-generated content, the real luxury might be to offer ‘handmade’ creations, with character, texture and imperfections.
Whilst Coca-Cola’s AI-generated Christmas advert has divided opinion, Apple has taken the opposite approach by unveiling a Christmas film made entirely with hand-crafted puppets.
The resurgence of brand building
Whatever happens, this creative surge represents a major opportunity for brand building. Following in the footsteps of Nike, ASOS and Airbnb, nearly a third of companies worldwide plan to increase their branding investment by 2026. Several factors explain this: a growing reliance on acquisition costs and the difficulty, since iOS 15, of accurately measuring performance.
To measure real impact, we must move beyond vanity KPIs such as reach, which no longer mean much in a market where attention is increasingly saturated. Appearing in feeds does not guarantee that your message has been seen, understood, let alone remembered.
Measurement will need to refocus on content retention and Earned Media Value, now one of the few KPIs capable of indicating a brand’s cultural impact.