Brand Extinction is Coming!

Robotics and AI aren’t just coming after your job. They’re going to make your brand disappear too. Just like the dinosaurs, brands that don’t adapt will become extinct – and 2026 is the beginning of mass brand extinctions.

This is the year where AI finally becomes good enough to replace the “transactional” layer of the workforce and commoditise almost everything we buy – both as consumers and as businesses.

If you are an insurance or mortgage broker who just finds the lowest rate, AI can do it faster. If your job follows systems, procedures, regulations or compliance, relies on KPI’s or repetition, then AI or robotics (or a combination of both) can do it faster, cheaper and better than humans. They work 24/7, don’t take sick days or holidays and there’s no wages, PAYG, Workcover, Superannuation, Payroll Tax and other employment costs to consider. No recruitment costs, HR issues or OH&S to worry about.

Accountants, lawyers, administrators, consultants, HR & recruitment professionals, property managers, body corporate and strata managers, educators and many more roles will be decimated. But nowhere will AI impact greater than in marketing. For brands, this is the beginning of the end!

If you are a brand that just looks “clean and professional” without any real soul, without meaning, value and sustainability, you are about to become invisible.

Pretty packaging – who cares when AI sees through it and informs consumers what’s really inside.

The 80/20 rule is coming for your brand

The middle ground is disappearing. The middle class is being slowly but effectively replaced. The market is splitting into two distinct groups.

  1. Commodities: With AI, everything is reduced to a commodity. Your brand doesn’t matter anymore, only outcomes matter! AI answers the one question brands can’t – “what’s best for me?” Brands try to tell people they are the best for the consumer, but consumers simply don’t listen any more. Commodities must compete on price and speed. Brands that are reduced to a commodity will ultimately lose to AI & automation because nothing is faster or cheaper. And with a shrinking middle class, who can afford to pay extra just for a “clean and professional” brand with no soul?
  2. Valuables: These products compete on value – pretty obvious really. They have a connection built around humanity – quality, durability, sustainability and trust – that AI technology can easily see and recommend, but cannot replicate.

Product development must prioritise health, quality, durability, sustainability. Marketing must become brutally honest.

Just like the brands they work for, marketers that don’t adapt also risk becoming extinct, outcompeted by the ones who do adapt and thrive in the new era of commerce. Marketers that try to hold onto the last bastions of brand by leading brands to believe that traditional marketing tactics will still work are “dreaming”.

You can’t tell consumers what’s best for them any more. Fake “authority” and marketing spin is easily exposed by AI assistants. Only real value wins.

And remember, you only dream when your asleep – SO WAKE UP!

80% of brands will die! 20% will adapt and thrive. Which group is yours in?