Every few months, a new tool promises to do the marketer’s job faster. The copy writes itself, the media plan itself, and the data reads itself. That leaves the industry facing an uncomfortable question: if machines can do all that, what is the marketer for?
It is the question at the heart of Marketer of the Future 2026, hosted by the Advertising Business Group (ABG), on October 29, at TODA Theatre, Souk Madinat Jumeirah, Dubai. This year’s theme, The Human Edge: Where Human Ingenuity Meets Intelligent Technology, turns on a single word: “meets”, not “versus”. The organizers’ case is that technology makes the known faster while people make it worth believing in, and that curiosity, judgement, empathy and cultural intelligence remain the marketer’s lasting edge.
Across one afternoon, senior leaders from L’Oréal, P&G, Unilever, Mashreq, G42, TikTok, Ipsos, Ebiquity, Creative Equals, EMIR Intelligence, Communicate and Expo City Dubai will join the World Federation of Advertisers (WFA) to test that idea against the realities of growth, responsibility and global relevance.
Trust: the currency of the future
Eleni Kitra, CEO and Executive Director of ABG, frames the problem bluntly. Every company now has the same tools, the same data and the same speed. “When everyone has the same advantage,” she says, “it stops being one.”
What remains, in her view, is trust. “Technology is becoming abundant. Trust is becoming scarce,” she says. “It can’t be generated. It can’t be prompted. It can’t be bought. It can only be earned, one kept promise at a time.”
It is a pointed reframing of the marketer’s job. On this reading, marketing is no longer a department but the place where a business earns the right to be trusted and decides where it will grow next.
Three convictions run through the agenda. Humans set the direction, with technology as the engine rather than the driver. Marketing leaders are business leaders, accountable for growth rather than awareness alone. And trust has become a currency in its own right: built slowly and lost quickly.
Right place, right time
The event is equally clear about its regional ambition. “The world isn’t waiting. Neither are we,” runs its own billing, which argues that the Middle East has the energy, ambition and vision to set the standard. The stated aim is for the world to stop seeing the region as “next” and start seeing it as first.
The agenda has been curated with the WFA, leading advertisers, agencies, government, academia and industry partners.
The conversations shaping the day
Rather than a parade of presentations, the afternoon is organized around a handful of questions the industry has been circling all year. None of them has a tidy answer, which is exactly why they are worth an afternoon.
Inside the marketer’s brain
If you could scan the brain of today’s best marketer, what would light up? ABG put that question to WFA President David Wheldon for the first episode of its new podcast, Brain of the Marketer, which launches after the event. It is also where the afternoon begins.
Opening the day alongside Eleni Kitra, Wheldon maps five things every marketer does (seeing, deciding, creating, influencing and leading) and asks of each one: where does trust live here? Which of the five is your organization strongest in today, and which will customers need to trust you for tomorrow?
Growth on a level playing field
When every competitor has the same tools and the same data, where does the next wave of growth come from? What still sets a brand apart when technology no longer does? And if a rival had your exact data tomorrow, what would still be yours alone?
From marketer to business leader
The CMO’s seat at the table is changing. Is the CMO of 2030 a marketer, or a business leader who happens to run marketing? As managers begin to lead teams of AI agents alongside people, what does it actually mean to be followed?
Humans and machines: who owns the decision?
The event’s theme rejects “versus”, but the practical question remains: where do you draw the line? Which decisions should a human always own, and how many have quietly been handed to a machine already?
Leading when the ground never stops moving
Transformation is no longer a project with an end date. How do you give a team direction when the map keeps changing? And what in a strategy should never change, however fast everything else does?
Senior marketers will test these questions against their own experience in a CMO panel featuring Sholto Douglas-Home of Expo City Dubai, Duygu Ersoy of Unilever and Georges Yaryura of Mashreq, moderated by Communicate’s own Editor-in-Chief, Julien Hawari.
Trust, ethics and responsible innovation
When everything can be automated, who is accountable, and who gets left out? Can a brand move at the speed of technology and still be trusted?
The anatomy of a pause
In a world built for scrolling, the moment that matters most is the moment someone stops. Attention or trust: which do you fight for first? And what does a brand do with the second it has earned?
Building better marketing: the host
Marketer of the Future 2026 is hosted by the Advertising Business Group (ABG), which describes itself as the Middle East’s leading body for responsible advertising and marketing. Its members are the region’s top brands, agencies, media and tech players, united by one purpose: shaping a sustainable, ethical, future-ready industry.
ABG tackles pressing challenges such as transparency, influencer marketing, sustainability and AI. Its board includes leaders from P&G, L’Oréal, Nestlé, TikTok, Google, Omnicom, WPP, Publicis and MMS, blending global expertise with regional edge.
ABG says hosting the event continues its mission to champion innovation, raise standards and put the Middle East where it belongs: at the front of the global conversation.
The event is supported by Gold partners GoWit and TikTok, alongside Hypermedia, Publicis Groupe, Communicate, The Trade Desk, Ipsos and Project Agora.
What to expect
Beyond the stage, the organizers are pitching the day as a meeting point for an industry that rarely shares a room. Brands, agencies, platforms, creators and media owners, many of them competitors, will sit side by side. The event is built around four ideas: keeping the future in focus, acting as a catalyst for collaboration, defining the marketer of the future, and networking with the people who make decisions.
The format mixes global and regional keynotes, panels and firesides with a networking lunch reception.
The event is aimed at C-suite brand and marketing leaders, agency and media executives, tech and platform disruptors, policymakers and regulators, and what the organizers call the next generation of changemakers.
If the opening sets the tone, the message delegates are likely to take home is a simple one. As Kitra puts it, the future won’t belong to the brands with the best tools. It will belong to the brands people trust.
