2026 Trends: Finding the 'why' before AI

It’s time to confront the strategic planning gap

AI is ubiquitous – being pushed by martech vendors and championed by those who see the obvious potential to transform everything from operations to share price.

With the hype comes the risk that businesses will repeat the failures of digital transformation. AI, like any other tech, can fall foul of issues with governance, integration and security, not to mention lack of an overarching strategy.

It’s been no surprise, therefore, to read headlines about corporate AI pilots and their tendency to fizzle out.

Of course, “the future can take time”, as Ben Evans put it in his recent trends deck, referencing the fact that 40% of CIOs don’t plan to deploy LLMs until 2026 or later, and that only c.30% of enterprise workflows are in public cloud infrastructure (despite the cloud revolution being 20+ years in the making).

But if strategy continues to be supplanted by hype, projects will inevitably continue to stall, and businesses risk more wasted investment.

Productivity without purpose

Danger lurks when AI usage is spotty and tactical. If tools remain as ad hoc assistants, and are not integrated into workflows, they can enter the dreaded territory of ‘workslop’. This is the term for low quality AI-generated work that merely creates the impression of productivity. It is the byproduct of a lack of investment in standardisation, training and governance. But it also reflects a lack of purpose – a loss of focus on why the organisation exists.

Businesses must close the strategic planning gap and define the problems they are solving for, before they can work on company culture and adoption.

Success stems from alignment amongst leadership, and clarity about
opportunity (hopefully with KPIs attached). Leaders planning AI pilots may
pursue a portfolio approach (as advocated by David Edmondson-Bird,
Faculty Lead in AI at MMU’s Centre for Enterprise), which defines
opportunities across the distinct areas of support, operations,
strategy and future bets. This approach allows organisations to
prioritise, manage risk and focus on existing business needs.

Knowing when to build or buy

Planning will also include the question of when to build or buy. In transformation projects at CTI we often talk about ‘replatforming
without regret’, and this sentiment can be extended to AI. Getting the right infrastructure, systems and interfaces in place is vital for long-
term success.

Managing all the moving parts of strategic planning, stakeholder engagement, workflow mapping, tech implementation and employee
training is no mean feat. But the potential is there for businesses that
get it right to develop an unfair advantage.

This is an excerpt from CTI Digital's report, 2026 Trends: Marketing in the Age of AI.