By Wanda Cadigan, senior VP marketing, Cloudinary
Physics Nobel laureate Niels Bohr famously said,”Prediction is very difficult—especially if it’s about the future.” This rings especially true today in a global business climate that seems determined to keep us on our toes. Predictions in tech can feel like a fool’s errand but the work we’re doing with our retail customers and partners offer strong signals about the trends retailers are leaning into in 2026.
Hyper-personalised experiences will continue to emerge, but slowly
Brands have been working to deliver more personalised experiences for a very long time because the upsides are so compelling. Organisations that personalise messaging around helping consumers directly can expect up to 16% more impact on commercial outcomes, according to Gartner, compared to those that don’t. Further, an IDC VotC (voice of the customer) study highlights that brands leveraging hyper-personalisation via voice-of-the-customer programmes and AI-driven customer journeys enhance loyalty and differentiate in competitive markets.
In practice, it’s tricky to execute. With mature hyper-personalisation you’re creating an experience on the fly that no one on your team has reviewed in advance, and which the consumer is experiencing for the first time. Brands will need to balance the art and science of creating highly tailored customer experiences while considering the risk.
That’s why I believe retailers will continue to take it in stages. In 2026, more brands will look to create bespoke experiences, such a custom product design. Retailers like Canyon offer a MyCanyon experience, allowing shoppers to build their dream mountain bikes, and gamers can build custom gaming setups in CORSAIR’s Custom Lab.
When it comes to the more dynamic, on-the-fly personalisation, I think brands will continue to lean in on usability and access. That means ensuring that content is personalised and optimised for consumers depending on their location, language, currency, device type, and visual and audio accessibility needs. This not only builds trust, but makes it easier for shoppers to evaluate and buy.
What’s next for next-gen shopping experiences?
Traditional product pages and shopping experiences are no longer enough. And not long ago, virtual try-on (VTO) was something only established brands were able to deliver. Today, thanks to advances in technology, it’s much more common. When it comes to accessories like jewellery and eye glasses, it’s expected.
That’s why I believe the next stage will focus on “complex experiences” – generated, interactive, and game-like marketing where consumers have control and gain a practical benefit. Virtual try-on is an early example of this where developments in online image technology mean 2026 will bring richer experiences. Instead of static outfit changes, consumers will be able to virtually “walk around” in new clothes or see a favourite celebrity wearing them.
Next-gen AR (augmented reality), which allows consumers to virtually interact with products they might buy, is proving highly impactful. Research from Shopify shows that products featuring 3D/AR content are seeing a 94% average conversion lift. A brand, for example, might allow shoppers to go beyond simply visualising a new sofa in their living room, to being able to visualise themselves sitting on it. I expect consumers to embrace these types of synthesised, interactive experiences because they don’t require perfect authenticity. Users accept the generated nature of the experience, viewing the avatar as “close enough.”
Again, success in this area is less about technology and more about market readiness, user control, and human behaviour. Let’s say that the same retailer above automatically generated an image of a shopper, in their own living room on one of their sofas, without first gaining consent. Most would perceive that as a highly intrusive trust violation and lose trust in the brand immediately.
GenAI adoption will hinge on use case, transparency and brand policies
AI image generation tools like Sora and Runway are getting better every day. I predict this will continue in 2026, eventually making today’s limited use cases more viable. We will likely see an increasing number of creative projects executed almost entirely with the assistance of AI, from initial ideation to final delivery.
The extent to which these projects will be fully AI-generated will be governed by consumer sentiment and legal frameworks. I believe widespread adoption hinges entirely on complete transparency: brands must explicitly and clearly disclose when AI was used to create the content.
Will that apply to everyone? Not in the shorter term. But smaller brands looking to save cost and be as nimble as possible are more likely to AI policies on the looser end of the spectrum.
I believe we’ll see this across images, across video, and increasingly in the kind of complex/mixed reality contexts I was talking about. In terms of AI handling visual media, not just in creation or manipulation, we’ll continue to see more and more interactions and workflows becoming AI-driven.
As always, brands will need to balance risk and reward – what’s possible with what makes sense for their consumers today, while easing into a future that shoppers only imagined.
