2025 in Review: ADMA on change, AI acceleration and the fundamentals that will define 2026

Against a backdrop of disruption and accelerating change, ADMA’s End of Year event brought the industry together to make sense of this year - and the one fast approaching. The evening delivered clear reflections on how marketers can lead with focus, creativity and confidence as 2026 takes shape.

At ADMA’s annual End Of Year celebration, the mood was one of clarity, conviction and renewed focus.  

Held once more at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Sydney, ADMA Chair David Morgan opened the evening in a rousing address, urging the room to see the ongoing change not as a challenge, but as marketing’s moment to lead.  

What followed was an energising panel conversation led by ADMA CEO Andrea Martens, featuring Uber’s Lucinda Barlow, Optus’ Emma Jensen, Omnicom Oceania’s Nick Garrett and ADMA’s Deputy Chair of Regulatory and Advocacy Working Group Sarla Fernando - each offering sharp perspectives on the year that was and the one fast approaching. 

If you missed it, here are the highlights of the evening. 

Uncertainty defined the year - but marketers are built for it 

David Morgan set the tone for the evening early on, highlighting "uncertainty" as the term he would use to define 2025. However, this is something he believes marketers thrive in. 

Morgan explains: “There's only one functional group that thrives in uncertainty and it's us. With as much uncertainty that’s been on our shoulders this year, uncertainty is our opportunity to lead and grow the businesses we’re with.” 

That sentiment was echoed across the panel, with moderator Andrea Martens sharing: “This is our opportunity to really lean in. We are great at change - it’s what we do. We manage through uncertain times, so let’s make the most of it.” 

Uber’s Lucinda Barlow, coming off the back of a rigorous global planning cycle, notes that the markets that leaned into uncertainty - rather than optimise for safety - saw the strongest results. 

She says: “I love embracing uncertainty and not trying to fix it with certainty. Instead, we try to fix it with brave conviction and doing what we know is right.” 

At Optus, Emma Jensen saw a similar pattern play out. She reflects that during such a busy year, there was often a pressure to deviate or add more layers to the business’ core strategy. 

But Jensen believes strongly in resisting the temptation of doing more for the sake of it: “My word of the year has been ‘focus’, because the more you are under pressure, the more important it is to focus on what actually has an impact and will make a difference.” 

And through a year marked by industry changes, Nick Garrett captured the mindset shift many marketers have grappled with: moving from defensive survival to deliberate growth. 

He explains: “My word of the year is ‘thrive’. We’re coming from a time when we were just thinking about surviving and resilience - now we’re ready to stop messing around.” 

The opportunities and pressures of AI 

Three years on from the launch of ChatGPT, and with most marketers having now used some form of generative AI, the panel shared a grounded reflection on how their businesses have adapted the technology. 

With one of the promises of generative AI being that it can offer greater efficiency, Barlow was candid about how there are difficulties in actually embedding the technology in a business and deriving the value from it. 

She explains: “We went all in on AI with gusto but I quickly realised just how hard it is to get the dream of efficiency. Even just the basics of trying to evaluate technologies when everything is changing so fast and bumping up against legacy systems is so difficult.” 

What Barlow expected to deliver in months took far longer - not because the ambition wasn’t there but because the infrastructure and momentum weren’t ready. 

Garrett points to the importance of culture, urging marketers to not let the promises of AI distract them from how crucial a strong culture is to a business. 

He says: “Culture eats strategy for breakfast. You need your troops to be passionate, to believe in the work they’re doing and to be excited to get out of bed.” 

For Sarla Fernando, the shift from AI being an experimental tool to one that has now been widely used, was even more dramatic - particularly on the governance side. 

She says: “We went from AI governance being a nice-to-have to something that we needed to have yesterday. Now we know AI tools can’t just be smart - they need to be polite, transparent and every business needs to be prepared to answer why it does something.” 

Jensen reinforced that even in the excitement, something crucial risks getting lost - the human at the centre of it all. 

She warns: “AI has a role to play but we are in danger of forgetting about the humanity required to get the most out of it. We need to set ourselves up to thrive in this new landscape as well.” 

Across the board, the takeaway was clear: AI is here, it is accelerating and while the possibilities are profound, so are the capability and cultural shifts needed to support it. 

In 2026, the fundamentals will be more important than ever 

In an increasingly cluttered landscape, the panel believed 2026 will reward those who recommit to the essentials - clarity, creativity, leadership and trust. 

Martens believes that, despite the challenges, marketers are in a good position to tackle the next 12 months: “If marketers hold true to humanity, leadership, effectiveness, conversation and trust - the road ahead is going to be really exciting.” 

Barlow warned against the industry’s growing tendency toward hyper-rationalisation, urging them to look beyond the day-to-day to the full picture: "See the forest for the trees. We can become so obsessed with data and metrics, we fall into a left-brain, hyper-rationalised state of mind.  

“But do not lose the forest and our incredible ability that is humanity. “ 

Garrett also pushed for a reset on how marketing success is judged: “We need to move from efficiency to effectiveness and switch from an IQ to an EQ output. We really need to become empathetic and solve problems for our customers.” 

For Jensen, the fundamentals always come down to the people. She explains: “We are focusing on leadership, on key skills like problem solving and agility and the things that will actually help us navigate what has been a really uncertain time ahead.” 

Fernando brought the conversation back to trust, stressing that this is one of the most critical currencies for marketers, particularly with privacy reform on the rapidly-approaching horizon.  

Fernando says: “Consumer trust and transparency is going to be way more important than it’s ever been because they are going to want to know what we are doing with their data and how we are using it.”  

The industry is heading into another year marked by uncertainty, rapid technological change and growing expectations from businesses and consumers. But as Morgan reminded the room, this is the moment to lead. 

Marketing’s role is rising, capability is strengthening and trust and effectiveness are becoming non-negotiable. With ADMA’s continued focus on capability, governance and community, the industry can approach 2026 not just aware of the challenges ahead - but ready for them.