On December 3, the official AI Spark Night party, created by eclicktech in conjunction with Affiliate World Asia (AWA), kicked off in Bangkok, Thailand. Focusing on affiliate marketing and e-commerce growth, this year's AI Spark Night has become a key venue for global marketers to capture industry trends, verify practical methodologies, and identify the next phase of growth engines. At the event, the 2026 Global AI Marketing Trends and Value White Paper – Preview Edition (hereinafter referred to as "the White Paper"), initiated by eclicktech and Alibaba Cloud with the participation of industry pioneers including Google, PubMatic, BIGO Ads, realme, Pixel Bloom, and Sailing Overseas, was simultaneously released.

From the fierce competition of algorithmic bidding to the race for omnichannel growth, from the surge of social fission to the explosive boom of short videos... For the past decade, the narrative of global marketing has been almost entirely dominated by "scale". In the fiercely competitive and fast-changing global market, enterprises have continuously chased a faster and steeper growth curve with ROI as the benchmark. However, as AI technology iteration and the globalization process simultaneously reach a new critical point, how will this traffic-driven growth logic be rewritten?

The 2026 Global AI Marketing Trends and Value White Paper aims to systematically deconstruct the underlying logic of AI reshaping global marketing, document the real progress of this intelligent wave, and help more brands find their own global growth path amid the tide of the Agentic AI era. The preview edition released first brings together cutting-edge insights and practical experience from many top experts in the industry ecosystem, hoping to provide the industry with an exploration map to the future.

01 The Intelligent Wave Reshapes Growth Logic: AI Becomes the New Foundation of Global Marketing

At present, with a new round of technological waves sweeping across the world, the engine of global economic growth is quietly shifting gears. According to the White Paper, between 2021 and 2030, the improvement in labor productivity brought by artificial intelligence is expected to contribute more than 55% of global GDP growth. This means that AI is no longer just a tool to improve efficiency, but is becoming the core driving force of global economic growth.

In the expert opinion section at the opening of the White Paper, Wu Yongming, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Alibaba Cloud Intelligence Group, pointed out: In the future, almost all tool interfaces connecting the real world will be linked to large models, and all user needs and industry applications will execute tasks through large model-related tools. LLMs will serve as the middle layer carrying the interactive scheduling between users, software and AI computing resources, becoming the operating system (OS) of the AI era. Large models will devour software. As the next-generation operating system, large models will allow anyone to create an unlimited number of applications using natural language. In the future, almost all software that interacts with the computing world may be Agents generated by large models, rather than the commercial software we use today. The number of potential developers will grow from tens of millions to hundreds of millions. Previously, due to the high cost of software development, only a small number of high-value scenarios would be developed by engineers into commercial software systems. In the future, all end users will be able to meet their own needs through tools such as large models.

Zhao Chong, Founder and CEO of Pixel Bloom, focused on the pain points of technology implementation and proposed the evolution from "single-point tools" to "ecosystem-embedded Agents". Brands no longer need isolated AI software, but AI capabilities (API/Agent) that can be embedded into existing business workflows. Just as Pixel Bloom embeds its capabilities into Lenovo computers or enterprises' own large models, AI applications in the future will be invisible. Brands prefer to choose AI Agents that can be seamlessly integrated with CRM, OA and knowledge bases. They can not only "write documents", but also independently call data, analyze competitors, and even assist in decision-making, realizing the paradigm shift from "humans using tools" to "human-machine collaboration".

02 Restructuring of the Global Media Ecosystem: AI Adoption by Leading Platforms and Distributed Growth of the Long Tail

With tightening privacy regulations, deepening regional cultural stratification, and the in-depth integration of generative AI into delivery systems, the global media ecosystem is undergoing a structural restructuring. Zhang Yi, Director of Google China Agency Management Department, delivered key signals on the traffic side. He stated that with the maturity of AI technology and the continuous changes in user media consumption habits, global traffic is significantly shifting to video. Compared with static content, video advertising, with its stronger narrative power, attention-grabbing ability and conversion efficiency, is becoming a key growth lever for more and more enterprises. With the rapid iteration of YouTube in terms of products, commercialization and in-app store capabilities, the platform is evolving from a traditional content channel to an independent commercial media matrix, becoming an indispensable force for brands to achieve sustained growth in the global market.

Wang Zongbo, Head of Greater China and Korea at PubMatic, corroborated the impact of AI on the advertising industry with hard data. He mentioned that in the field of programmatic advertising, 83% of senior brand marketers have used AI technology for digital ad targeting. Artificial intelligence will greatly improve productivity, optimize decision-making, and bring unimaginable solutions. However, without human guidance, it will ultimately achieve little. The real winners will be enterprises that use AI to augment human intelligence, not replace it. PubMatic is committed to developing tools to help marketers automate operational tasks, so they can focus on what only they can do: shaping culture, building brands, and creating meaningful connections with audiences.

03 Re-stratification of the Global Market: From Singular Globalization to a Multi-Polar Growth Pattern

For the past decade, globalization has been almost defaulted to a growth paradigm "centered on Europe and the United States". Most brands' globalization paths have revolved around mature markets such as North America, Europe, Japan and South Korea. However, with the profound evolution of the market environment, economic structure and digitalization process, globalization is entering a new cycle driven by multiple poles, with growth no longer concentrated in a single center, but breaking out simultaneously in multiple regions. Emerging markets represented by the Middle East and North Africa (MENA), Latin America (LATAM) and Southeast Asia (SEA) are becoming the "new three poles" of global growth. Driven by policy dividends, demographic structure and digital infrastructure, they provide a new deterministic growth curve for brand globalization.

Liu Wuhua, CEO of Sailing Overseas, pointed out the key to breaking through in emerging markets. He stated that Southeast Asia, the Middle East and Latin America are becoming the "three major gravitational fields" for the global expansion growth of enterprises, but the three regions have extremely strong differences, and their growth models also show clear differentiation. For enterprises to navigate the differences between the three regions, the core is to establish a cross-market localized insight system: understand cultural and behavioral differences, adapt to local content production methods, and use AI to improve the efficiency of influencer selection, content creation and delivery optimization. Brands with "regional stratified understanding + AI-driven localization" will occupy higher deterministic growth in the next round of global competition.

04 Reshaping the Global Consumer Decision Journey: From Linear Funnel to Intelligent Intent Path

If market multi-polarization, technological intelligence and distributed media ecosystem constitute the "external variables" of global growth, then changes in global consumer decision-making are the "internal variables" that brands must re-understand. Olivia Meng, Senior Media Manager of realme Overseas Marketing Department, shared practical experience in the consumer electronics sector. She stated that the emergence of AI is reshaping the value chain of the mobile phone industry. Against the backdrop of the continuous upgrading of global consumer demand, AI-centered product narratives are more attractive. Whether it is AI image processing, AI game assistants or personalized recommendations, they not only enhance product differentiation, but also strengthen users' understanding and purchase motivation. AI is also deeply empowering content creation and ad delivery. Brands can now quickly produce high-quality creative materials, and AI-driven intelligent delivery also enables ads to accurately reach high-potential audiences, greatly improving media efficiency and conversion performance.

Yu Haixin, Head of Greater China Sales at BIGO Ads, issued a warning about "intelligent silos". He emphasized that currently, global AI marketing is undergoing a paradigm shift from efficiency improvement to growth creation. The traditional marketing model relying on human experience and shallow automation can no longer cope with cross-platform and cross-cultural real-time competition, falling into "intelligent silos" and growth bottlenecks. The real breakthrough lies in building a self-driven growth system centered on AI Agents: through continuously iterative algorithm models, realizing the insight leap from describing behaviors to predicting intentions; with generative AI, achieving contextualized creative communication in "every moment and every scenario"; more importantly, enabling AI Agents to independently compete in the omnichannel ecosystem, optimize budgets and strategies in milliseconds, and achieve the dual maximization of ROI and scale. This not only restructures marketing efficiency, but also reshapes the logic of value creation — the focus of competition shifts from traffic price wars to mindshare and omnichannel incremental value. In the future, marketing organizations will evolve into "AI strategists + algorithm auditors", and build an open, collaborative and sustainable intelligent growth community with ecosystem partners.

In the era of global exploration, choice outweighs effort. When intelligent algorithms replace human prediction, when data intelligence penetrates user surface behaviors, and when generative AI activates content innovation, how can global brand enterprises dance with AI to improve global operational efficiency at a lower cost, support rapid business growth, and drive the flywheel of global expansion? For more exciting content, please follow the official WeChat account of "eclicktech ", and send in the dialog box to get the preview edition of the White Paper.

Notably, the preview edition released this time is the starting point for the co-construction of the AI marketing ecosystem, and the more comprehensive full version of the White Paper will be launched soon. Compared with the preview edition, the full version will deliver more systematic and practical content: in-depth analysis of AI-driven global marketing methodologies, sorting out the intelligent growth path of brands, presenting a practical map for the intelligent leap of global brands, and also including a directly callable global marketing AI capability map of intelligent engines, to help brands achieve global breakthroughs in the AI era in an all-round way. To get a first look at AI marketing trends, follow the official WeChat account of "eclicktech" to set a launch reminder for the full version of the 2026 Global AI Marketing Trends and Value White Paper, and seize the first-mover advantage of growth in the intelligent wave together with eclicktech.