Deloitte: The Consumer Forces Changing Work

There has been a major shift in how consumers engage with content, driven by the rise of social media, gaming, and personalised digital experiences, according to Deloitte’s latest report, 2026 Digital Media Trends.

But how does this directly impact the way we work – specifically for marketing leaders?

As more people are consuming digital content, it’s changing individuals’ expectations, as now people want more tailored, intuitive and on-demand experiences.

Impersonal brand experiences, generic content strategies and one-size-fits-all messaging are no longer hitting the mark – individuals are expecting more.

If your brand touchpoints and internal marketing tools don’t match the ease and relevance of consumer platforms, leaders can expect to see audience engagement – and team adoption – drop.

That’s why Marketing Chief Magazine took a deep dive into a handful of Deloitte’s latest reports to discover what CMOs need to know about how the market – and the marketing organisation – is changing behind the scenes.

Self-taught AI literacy

The average consumer spends 6 hours a day on media and entertainment activities, according to Deloitte.

For CMOs and marketing operations leaders, this highlights a clear message as to where attention and engagement are being focused.

24% of people surveyed expressed wanting to use Gen AI to ‘co-create’ storylines, with 27% of people wanting personalised, AI-generated highlight reels and digests.

This data highlights that employees are more likely to be comfortable with AI in their personal lives than with the tools provided at work. However, this should be seen as an opportunity to tap into the ‘home-grown’ AI literacy to drive marketing innovation.

To combat this, leaders should harness existing consumer AI fluency to accelerate adoption at work.

AI's ‘cultural debt’ 

Although Deloitte’s 2026 Digital Media Trends report highlights consumers’ eagerness to ‘co-create’ with AI, the company’s 2026 Global Human Capital Trends warns that organisations are overlooking the ‘human fabric’ of this transition – an issue marketing leaders will feel acutely as AI scales across creative, content and media workflows.

The report states: "Many organisations are overlooking AI’s impact on human-to-human behaviours, allowing misalignment, distrust and unaddressed norms to accumulate as ‘cultural debt.’"

As a result, marketers are questioning “what counts as effort, ownership, fairness, and accountability,” with many organisations “rarely evaluating AI’s cultural effects,” which can erode team cohesion, agency partnerships and ultimately brand trust.

To avoid this, Deloitte suggests that leaders should “intentionally reinforce and evolve culture” to help strengthen AI.

If consumers are co-creating with AI at home but marketers feel constrained or unclear at work, brands aren’t just losing speed and creativity – they’re accumulating cultural debt.

To combat this, marketing leaders should focus on building trust with their teams, while ensuring AI doesn’t just automate tasks but actively reinforces human values – clarity on attribution, brand safety, and creative standards. Leaders must, therefore, intentionally evolve norms, not just deploy tools.

Diversity is not a ‘nice to have’

Nearly 70% of Black consumers surveyed and more than half of Asian, multiracial, and Hispanic and Latinx consumers surveyed shared how important it is to them to see a diverse representation in creative roles.

As a result, diversity is just as important “behind the scenes” as it is in front-facing roles.

While diversity remains a moral imperative for brands, Deloitte’s 2026 Digital Media Trends report highlights it as a core economic driver within the “Fan Economy.”

Fans are referred to as super-users, spending 16% more time – an extra 51 minutes per day – on entertainment than non-fans.

This data demonstrates that the demand for authentic representation behind the scenes is now a business-critical requirement for audience retention and brand loyalty.

Diving into this topic on LinkedIn, China Widener, Vice Chair and US Technology, Media & Telecommunications Industry Leader at Deloitte, says: “There’s a difference between audiences and fans. And right now, much of the media and entertainment industry is still built for the former.

“Deloitte’s Digital Media Trends 2026 report shows that fandom is always on. Fans don’t wait for releases. They move across social, creators, communities, and commerce to stay connected.

“But business models are still built around moments. Launch. Promote. Repeat. That’s the disconnect. Every time a fan leaves the platform to discover, engage, or buy, value goes with them. Visibility drops. Opportunity disappears.”

Diversity should therefore be seen as a core component of brand strategy, because it’s a key requirement for consumers. In other words, if brands lack representation, marketers will struggle to convey an “authentic voice.”

Representation and DEI strategies should therefore be viewed as a retention strategy – not just a moral add‑on – driving fandom, loyalty, and long-term growth.