IAB AI Growth Summit 2026:  Confidence, Challenge and the Grief of Letting Go

Amy Beeken – Strategy Director at The Media People

Last month, I attended the IAB AI Growth Summit in London, hoping for fresh thinking, practical inspiration and reassurance that we’re on the right track. I came away with all three, plus one feeling I hadn’t expected to name.

The conversations throughout the day reinforced how AI is reshaping marketing strategy, AI search and the way businesses measure success.

Confidence: We’re Closer Than We Think

My biggest takeaway was confidence. Much of what was discussed on stage mirrored the conversations we’re already having with clients and the strategies we’re already recommending. What felt like bold ideas in January are fast becoming best practices across the industry.

What Do You Want To Be Known For?

One question ran through the day: what do you want to be known for? As AI makes content and capability more accessible, brand values matter more, not less. When customers compare brands in a few lines of an AI-generated answer rather than visiting 10 websites, differentiation comes from clarity of purpose, trust and reputation, not glossy websites.

Why Business Metrics Matter More Than Marketing Metrics

That same shift is reshaping measurement. The move from marketing metrics to business metrics is something we’ve always championed at The Media People, and AI has only accelerated it. Reach, impressions and clicks still have their place, but they aren’t the destination, especially in a zero-click search economy where customer journeys through Large Language Models (LLMs) can’t yet be mapped.

The brands seeing real impact are linking CRM and sales data to their marketing, and measuring what actually moves the business: growth, efficiency, profitability and customer value. The challenge is shifting from proving marketing worked to proving the business moved forward.

Challenge: Be Bold, Be Hairy, Be Audacious

If confidence was the reassurance, challenge was the push forward.

The Great Unbundling of the Website

The Microsoft session scratched an itch I’ve had for a while: the great unbundling of the website. We’ve spent decades treating websites as destinations. But as customers increasingly discover, compare and evaluate through AI assistants, websites become structured data sources that feed those systems. They don’t disappear – they become the infrastructure that powers experiences elsewhere.