Forrester’s 2026 Warning against AI, One-Third of Brands Will Lose Consumers

Advertising patterns in January 2026 emerged as a moment of holding up a mirror to AI. From Almond Breeze, where the Jonas Brothers trolled GenAI versions of themselves, to Lufthansa’s hand-made illustrations for its centenary celebration, trust has surfaced as a significant KPI for brands and agencies. 

A Forrester survey rolled out a series of predictions around the use of GenAI and self-service AI agents in advertising and customer service. The findings spotlight an exponential relationship between brand trust and brand performance. 

This piece dives into why these predictions matter and what they signal for brands and agencies in the long run. 

AI hype bubble will burst, trust must prevail

The AI hype bubble has been gaining momentum since last December. In the technology landscape, Microsoft, Meta, OpenAI, Google, and others have been competing aggressively across the AI ecosystem for years. 

2026 is shaping up as the year that will test whether these tech maestros can genuinely integrate consumers, brands, behaviors, and everything from an email to a click-to-buy into their AI-driven systems. At the same time, the potential bursting of the AI hype bubble remains part of the same conversation. 

Forrester’s 2026 predictions reveal that AI fatigue has become a real issue for consumers. In the coming months, many may shift toward offline experiences over online ones. This change won’t just alter how brands interact with consumers—it will put brand authenticity under scrutiny if AI-led behavior persists from brands. 

Still, AI isn’t the villain by default. As Vanessa Chin of System1 told Ad Pulse, 
“AI can absolutely work in advertising when it’s used in a positive way, where the focus is on emotion, creative consistency, and celebrating the season — with AI supporting a fundamentally human idea.” 

That phrase—AI supporting a fundamentally human idea—is central to the trust debate. The real question is whether consumers see brands leading with human intent before deploying AI. Forrester’s predictions suggest that many don’t. 

AI is pushing consumers away from the Open Web, leading to budget cuts

Consumers aren’t browsing anymore; they’re querying. They move directly to AI summaries, assistants, and closed environments that deliver answers without ads, scrolling, or publisher ecosystems. This behavior punches a hole straight through the value proposition of display advertising. 

As audiences shrink, CPMs rise and performance drops. Display advertising quickly becomes the weakest line item on the media plan. A projected 30 percent cut in display budgets isn’t panic—it’s arithmetic. Less attention equals less ROI. 

For brands and agencies, this creates an uncomfortable reality: 

• Programmatic scale no longer equals reach 

• Open Web targeting becomes fuzzier, not smarter  

• Owned channels, retail media, and closed platforms feel like safer bets  

The trust issue here is subtle but brutal. Ads feel more intrusive when consumers don’t ask to see them. AI interfaces, by contrast, feel “helpful,” even when they’re biased or incomplete. If brands fail to rethink how they show up beyond banners and native formats, they won’t just lose impressions—they’ll lose relevance 

Privacy, copyright, and IP will surge with time

AI scales privacy violations. Training models on scraped data, copyrighted visuals, voices, and writing has pushed brands into a legal grey zone they’re pretending doesn’t exist. That fantasy is ending. 

A 20 percent surge in class-action lawsuits means three things: 

1. Legal exposure will move from tech providers to brands using AI outputs 

2. “We didn’t know” will stop being a defense 

3. Trust will be measured not just by messaging, but by compliance 

The Disney vs. The Midjourney case is a warning. Writers suing Meta? Same story. The focus is shifting from pixels and cookies to AI provenance—where data came from, who owns it, and whether consent was ever involved. 

For agencies, this raises uncomfortable questions: 

• Can you prove your AI-generated assets are IP-clean? 

• Are you briefing legal before creative launches—or after backlash?  

• Are clients insured against AI-driven brand risk? 

Consumers are craving real-life interaction and rejecting AI slop

Consumers are drowning in synthetic content: AI-written emails, AI-generated images, AI-voiced videos. It all blends together. It all feels disposable. And people are opting out. 

Forrester’s data shows one-third of consumers prefer offline experiences as a form of self-defense. Real-world experiences offer what AI can’t fake (yet): texture, friction, memory, and social proof. 

This doesn’t mean digital is dead. It means: 

• Digital must earn attention, not assume it 

• Offline activations regain strategic value 

• Experiential marketing becomes a trust-builder, not a vanity play 

Brands that keep pumping out low-effort AI content risk being mentally filtered out. Meanwhile, brands invest in physical touchpoints—events, retail experiences, IRL communities—signal effort, intent, and authenticity. 

Disconnected consumer journey maps and CX abandonment

Consumer journeys aren’t breaking because consumers are unpredictable. They’re breaking because ownership is fractured. 

Only 30 percent of CX leaders feel confident managing end-to-end journeys, and even those teams often sit far from revenue, growth, or product decisions. CX owns “experience,” business teams own “outcomes,” and nobody owns the full loop. 

AI was supposed to fix this. Instead, it added more layers: 

• AI chat here 

• Human support there 

• Self-service everywhere 

• Accountability nowhere 

When journeys aren’t mapped or owned, trust collapses at the conversion, retention, or support stage. Consumers don’t care which team failed them; they only remember that the brand did. 

For brands and agencies, this creates a clear divide: 

• Brands that integrate CX into business strategy will compound trust 

• Brands that treat CX as a support function will leak customers silently

Performance without trust is short-lived

2026 will separate brands chasing scale from brands building credibility. Trust will show up in legal exposure, media efficiency, CX continuity, and real-world engagement. Self-service AI, genAI creatives, and AI-led CX systems promise efficiency, but when they replace empathy, accountability, and clarity, they quietly erode trust. 

AI can still drive performance. But only brands that respect trust as a business constraint, not a branding sentiment, will see that performance last. 

Cut to the chase

Forrester survey predictions highlight the issues that can arise if brands fail to mend their ways and continue treating AI in branding carelessly. Growing consumer skepticism has raised questions around brand integrity and online brand experiences.