The trends shaping 2026: 3 things we learned from a year of change

If 2025 taught us anything, it’s that change doesn’t arrive in neat, manageable intervals. It comes fast, from every direction, and often all at once. This year, we’ve watched new technologies mature at speed, seen industries redefine their value, and felt the ripple effects of economic and geopolitical pressure shape how organisations communicate, operate and make decisions.

Here are three lessons our team is carrying into 2026. 

Gus Wick, Business Director, ASEAN

The most valuable discovery this year wasn't about technology. It was about measurement. Specifically, the difference between what's easy to measure and what actually matters.

We've all been caught in an interesting trap. Every decision looked sensible in isolation: tighter budgets, more efficient processes, better dashboard metrics. Yet many of us weren't seeing the growth we expected. It reminded me of an old management principle which is, you get what you measure, not necessarily what you want.

The insight came from revisiting first principles. Marketing fundamentally changes behaviour, and that's never been a cheap or simple task. When we optimise primarily for efficiency, we risk optimising away the very elements that make the work effective. It's like improving a restaurant by reducing ingredient costs, technically rational but maybe not so good until you taste the food.

AI's arrival crystallised this for me. It's brilliant at execution and optimisation which means the real value increasingly lies not in doing things efficiently, but in knowing which things are worth doing at all; the judgement, the strategic risk-taking, the understanding of human behaviour.

Moving forward, we're being a lot more deliberate about what we measure and why. Balancing efficiency with effectiveness. Investing in capabilities that complement AI rather than compete with it. Focusing on outcomes that matter: genuine brand growth, not just activity metrics.

Sometimes, the most profound technology shifts reveal truths that were always there.

Jelena Li, Business Director, Associations

Reflecting on the past year, one of the biggest shifts I’ve seen in my work with associations is that more organisations are really doubling down on strengthening their member value propositions. What stood out to me is that a lot of associations are now much further along in their digital transformations. They’re no longer just talking about plans or intentions—they’re actually able to take action, backed by better systems and clearer strategic priorities.

When it comes to attracting, engaging, and retaining their members, this much improved access to data has opened up a huge opportunity for many. It’s allowing associations to think a lot more holistically about the entire member lifecycle. Instead of looking at individual segments and responding with standalone tactics, they’re starting to ask much deeper questions about what members need and what they value at each stage of their career journey.

I’ve also noticed a real push to break down silos across teams, which is making it easier to create connected experiences that build brand synergy across the entire lifecycle, not just at isolated touchpoints.

Looking ahead to 2026, the opportunity is really clear: I want to help associations make the most of this momentum. How might they use their growing digital maturity to shape member experiences that feel cohesive, personalised, and genuinely compelling?

Cara McLeod, Chief Executive

2025 was a rollercoaster. We experienced big highs as well as big lows. We responded to technology, economic and geopolitical forces that felt like they all hit at once, from all sides. The key takeaway is remembering how adaptable we are as a team, and as a business. As an independently-owned firm for almost 30 years, Mahlab has navigated periods of uncertainty before. 2025 was a year of really rapid change that impacted the clients we worked with, the work we do for them and the skills we needed. 

For our Australian clients, this saw us delivering more strategy work, supporting our clients to address the complex organisational challenges they’re facing, whether that’s DEI, customer and member retention or how to communicate with an increasingly complex stakeholder mix that’s ever harder to reach and get attention with.

In Asia, we’re working with B2B organisations who need to communicate with diverse, multicultural audiences. Doing this well at scale is hard, but our proprietary AI tool, CampaignScaler, is enabling us to scale global content-led campaigns, producing high-quality, multi-language content more accurately and 4x faster than a traditional production workflow.

Some things haven’t changed. The Mahlab team continues to show up every day for our clients, pushing themselves to deliver work that works. They’re asking the right questions to deeply understand their challenges and applying their critical and strategic thinking to transform how they communicate, and I’m really proud of what we’ve achieved.