Every year in our industry feels fast, but 2025 moved at a different speed. AI matured, measurement expanded, brand strategy regained its influence, and collaboration became a default expectation rather than a specialist capability. It was also a defining year for us at InfoSum, with RampDown cutting through the noise, our acquisition by WPP accelerating our mission, Open Intelligence launching as the first Large Marketing Model, and Beacons reshaping what privacy-safe collaboration can look like.

Four moments that shaped InfoSum’s year

This year came with four defining milestones for InfoSum.

Our RampDown campaign in February across San Francisco cut through the market more than any campaign we have ever produced. It showed the power of clarity, creativity, and cultural timing. It sparked conversation, drove coverage, and has been recognised with awards and shortlists.

WPP's acquisition of InfoSum, of course, marked a turning point. It validated the importance of privacy-safe collaboration at the heart of modern marketing and connected our technology to the world’s largest network of brands, agencies and media partners. 

The acquisition also meant that within weeks, we were able to support WPP on the launch of Open Intelligence. With InfoSum as the foundation, Open Intelligence brings together data from across the ecosystem in a way that protects privacy, keeps each party in control of their data assets and unlocks new, unseen growth opportunities. That combination of decentralised access, intelligence and trust is exactly what the industry has been waiting for.

At our recent InfoSummit, Valerie Mercurio shared an important reminder about what decentralised access really means for the future. InfoSum’s mission remains unchanged. We are here to connect the world’s data without sharing it. But with the world’s data living in different clouds, platforms and formats, the industry needs a privacy-safe way to bring all those environments together. That is why we launched Beacons. This reimagining of InfoSum’s core technology delivers a new way to collaborate across clouds, platforms and partners without ever sharing or centralising data. It is already shaping how companies think about identity, intelligence and activation.

2025 Changed the way we work

We have said for years that the CMO job is changing, but in 2025, that change became visible. The CMOs who thrived were the ones who could hold two ideas at once. They embraced AI, intelligence, and experimentation, while also protecting creativity, culture, and the emotional side of marketing. They became the translation layer between creative ambition and data-driven execution.

Marketing once again earned its place as the engine of growth. The companies that leaned into intelligence, insight, and bold storytelling moved faster and more confidently than those who held on to legacy ways of working.

But the CMO role wasn’t the only one to evolve. This was also the year that the brand re-entered the centre of the conversation. Brian Lesser summed it up well at the ANA Masters of Marketing. Brand is back in style. And not in a nostalgic sense, but because the data proves it. WPP’s How Humans Decide study showed that 84% of purchases involve consumers choosing brands they are already biased towards. That means only 16% of buying decisions are genuinely up for debate.

The implication is clear. Brand is not a layer on top of marketing. It is the starting point for every interaction. Younger audiences, especially, are choosing brands based on trust, values, and a sense of alignment. Authenticity is no longer a message. It is the lived experience of the brand across product, service, retail, and data strategy.

And to deliver those lived, joined-up experiences, the industry turned to data collaboration as one of the most powerful levers of growth. Retail media networks expanded their partnerships. Broadcasters unlocked richer measurement. Agencies leaned into shared intelligence to fuel planning and optimisation. Everywhere, collaboration became the connective tissue behind more modern, intelligent customer experiences.

This shift made the launch of Beacons all the more important. Collaboration only works when companies can protect their data, stay in control, and still gain access to new intelligence. Beacons answered that challenge by enabling cross-cloud connections without sharing or moving data. It created a way for brands, media owners, retailers, and other data owners to collaborate in a privacy-safe, AI-ready environment.

The path forward in 2026

As we enter 2026, a few trends stand out. The first is the way AI will shift from being treated as a tool to becoming the foundation of the entire marketing infrastructure. It will influence everything from creative development to planning, buying, and measurement, moving from something teams experiment with to something they build around.

As AI becomes the base layer, the role of identity will start to change. Identity will still matter, but not in the way it once did. It will become the outline of the puzzle, creating structure and an entry point, while the richer understanding comes from AI filling in the middle through behaviour, context, signals, and intent. What once felt like the whole picture will increasingly feel like a helpful frame.

As that shift takes place, the clean room conversation will quietly fade from the industry vocabulary. Yes, even the guy from InfoSum is calling time on the clean room conversation. Not because collaboration is less important, but because secure data connections will become native to cloud, media, and AI environments. Collaboration will simply be the way data is used safely across the ecosystem, rather than a standalone category.

With this new intelligence layer in place, brands will begin to bring creativity and AI closer together. Many will start training their own creative models on their first and second-party data. That will allow them to produce content that stays true to brand identity while dynamically adapting to audiences, formats, and contexts. The gap between art and science will narrow as creative becomes more intelligent and intelligence becomes more creative.

Onto the next level

For me, there is one moment in 2026 that I am particularly excited for. Fun fact… InfoSum was founded, built, adopted, and acquired before we got GTA VI. If all goes to plan, 2026 is the year it arrives. The launch of GTA VI will be one of the cultural moments of next year. It will create new intersections across gaming, fashion, food, and entertainment and open the door for entirely new forms of brand partnerships inside virtual worlds.

2025 was a year that pulled intelligence, creativity, and collaboration closer together. It forced the industry to rethink what growth requires and what consumers expect.

As we look to 2026, success will come from companies that build trust, embrace intelligence, and connect their ecosystems in smarter ways. At InfoSum, we are proud to be part of shaping that future and excited for what comes next.