Maren Viker || Senior Strategist
Why the brands that win in 2026 will be the ones that redefine agency for their consumer
The story of the consumer at the end of 2025 is one that concludes a narrative arc we’ve been on since the early days of the pandemic. Total loss of control and stability, a fight to reclaim normalcy and agency, and now, the decision to accept that things have fundamentally changed — and each consumer is redefining control for themselves.
For years, we lived under a cultural script that insisted control was a virtue. Optimize, track, self-improve, upgrade. If you worked hard enough, you could outrun volatility.
Then came the shocks we couldn’t control: a global pandemic, supply chain chaos, economic instability, political fracture, AI breakthroughs, weather events, escalating healthcare costs. Consumers kept looking for a return to “normal,” but 2025 made it clear: that train’s not coming.
So instead, they built something new. For brands: your customer is no longer asking you to give them control. They’re asking whether you deserve to share the control they’ve already taken back.
Optimism on a Budget
Consumers ended 2025 in a familiar emotional split-screen. On one hand, 74% of Americans said they were at least moderately worried about the economy, and nearly a third felt worse off than the year before1. People responded by delaying major purchases and trimming nonessentials — not out of panic, but out of calculation.
At the same time, there was an optimism: 63% of Americans said they expect 2026 to be a better financial year for them personally, even as 51% believe prices will continue to rise2. That mix of feeling hopeful while bracing for impact — is the mindset that defined the year.
Globally, these psychological crosscurrents showed up too. Fifty-eight percent of consumers experience moderate to extreme daily stress, and two in five feels under constant pressure to keep up. In response, two-thirds are simplifying their lives, 3 stripping away anything that adds friction or noise.
Consumers accepted that they can’t engineer stability in the world around them, so they’re protecting it inside their own routines. Attention, finances, and emotional bandwidth have become the resources worth managing.
Health Became a Long Game
Consumers didn’t wait for healthcare systems to simplify — they built simplified systems around themselves. Today 3 in 4 people now track aspects of their health through devices or apps. Nearly 40% are comfortable using at-home diagnostics, a behavior once reserved for the early-adopter fringe.3
Even more intensive interventions became normalized: GLP-1 use among people trying to lose weight increased from 6% to 9% in a single year. And a growing share of consumers — 35% — say their current approaches to prevention or treatment aren’t effective, prompting them to search for alternatives.3
Consumers are more comfortable than ever, taking their long-term stability into their own hands. And many may need to. As healthcare premiums are expected to skyrocket, a jump in cost becomes one more reminder that stability won’t come from insurers, so they’ll reinforce the routines they trust: diagnostics they can run themselves, prevention they don’t need permission for, care models with pricing that doesn’t shift under their feet.
Tech Got Smarter — and Consumers More Skeptical
AI dominated 2025’s headlines, but consumers adopted it with precision, not abandon.
They embraced the parts of tech that reinforced their routines — one in three voice-assistant users rely on it to make daily tasks easier3 — folding automation into daily routines without ceding decision-making.
At the same time, broader sentiment remained skeptical. Half of Americans report being more concerned than excited about AI’s growing role4 and only 26% say they trust companies to use it responsibly5.
Consumers want technology that makes life easier, not technology that tries to become life. The new rule is simple: support my independence; don’t replace it.
Retail as a Mirror
In 2025 consumers stopped treating retail as exploration and began treating it as alignment: Does this fit the life I’m actively trying to build?
That shift is visible in the preferences they express. 58% want curated experiences tailored to their tastes, and 47% want products that make them feel distinct.3
At the same time consumers want their products to work for them, they’re more skeptical about their impact on the world. Only 51% now believe their choices can meaningfully shape the world, down from 56%. But rather than disengage, they redirected their attention toward places where their influence feels more tangible: their homes, their habits, their circles, and brands whose behaviors match their claims.
The result? Shoppers weren’t just cautious — they were deliberate. Retail became a ritual of reinforcing boundaries and priorities that were within their control. Every purchase had to justify its role within a life that consumers were curating with more intention, not more volume.
In conclusion, the consumer isn’t coming back to you in 2026. They’re expecting you to meet them where they already are in routines they’ve refined, values they’ve chosen, boundaries they’ve built.
In 2026, winning brands won’t just empower consumers. They’ll respect the fact that consumers have already empowered themselves. The job isn’t to hand back control. It’s to prove you’re worthy of being let in.
[1]SSRS (Americans Continue to be Anxious about the Economy Amid Rising Cost of Living)
[2]Nerd Wallet (2026 Consumer Outlook Report – 51% Say Prices Will Worsen)
[4]Pew Research (How Americans View AI and Its Impact on People and Society)
[5]Qualtrics (Increased Expectations, Declining Loyalty; Qualtrics Announces 2025 Consumer Experience …