Despite the evolving media landscape and continual doomsaying about the death of linear, upfronts arguably remain the most pivotal week of the year for TV networks. Billions of dollars in ad commitments take shape during the annual industry showcase, providing a view into the evolving dynamics of media buying—and the tech that will measure those investments.

Ad tech played a pivotal role in the 2025 upfronts and NewFronts, with Google, Yahoo, Netflix and Fox driving home the importance of AI- and data-driven ad tools for marketers. Gen Z once again dominated the demographic conversation, with tailored lineups and targeted content, while the dynamics between streaming and legacy networks continued to play out against a backdrop of Trump’s tariffs, increasing economic uncertainty and a fragmented media landscape. Amid so much disruption and reinvention, we turned to the experts for their key takeaways from TV’s biggest week.

Live Programming Is Essential Business

Michelle Capasso, Partner & Chief Media Officer

No surprise: Live tentpole events, especially sports, are still king of the hill—and played a big role in the upfronts. But this year’s focus on ad tech and new ways to buy recognizes the importance of ad-supported metrics. Ad buyers have always cared about performance and transparency, and now the platforms are finally responding. Netflix, once the champion of ad-free experience, is now touting the importance and relevance of their ad-supported tiers, and Amazon featured their ad-supported growth in streaming as a centerpiece in their pitch. This shift hopefully means more transparency for buyers—all that star power on stage touting programs in development means more when advertisers can finally get a piece of it.

The rush to sports should help support upfront spending as budgets get tighter with economic uncertainty. Big brands need it to capture large audiences. Deals will likely be more concentrated, while advertisers try to consolidate into “sure things” like live sports to reach audiences that continue to fragment, driving up pricing. But the heavy focus this year on ad tech and more ways to buy programmatically could ding upfront spend and incentivize advertisers to not lock up those budgets now.

Read the full AdAge article here.

Media-savvy colleges and universities are moving past their traditional communications teams to tap into the hot market of influencer campaigns that resonate with Gens Z and Alpha. Instead of recruiting A-list celebrities or internet personality moguls to champion their campuses, however, institutions have found a more effective (and cheaper) spokesperson.

“Current students and alumni are our biggest advocates,” says Chandra Carson, executive director of content marketing at the University of New Hampshire. “They already love the university, and so they’re able to share their stories and experiences with prospective students.”

Higher education spent over $200 million on advertising via mobile web video in 2024, the highest among all media, according to a recent report from Education Dynamics, an enrollment management service. It found that the trend is primarily driven by short-form video content, often called “reels,” which is ubiquitous with the new social media titan TikTok. One source claims TikTok is more popular than Google’s search engine among Gen Z.

Institutions must appeal to advertising to Gen Z in new ways. These young, media-savvy consumers, well-versed in the trappings of corporate content, desire authentic expression, says Alyssa Stevens, Public Relations and Social Media Director at advertising agency Connelly Partners.

“That content is best created by either creators or real people, a.k.a influencers, and in this case, students and alumni of the organization, so they have an authentic connection to the organization that we’re promoting.”

Influencer content created by the University of New Hampshire in collaboration with Connelly Partners has a 22% higher engagement rate than brand content created internally, she says. Its latest campaign reached over 90% of its target audience.

Some of the most popular types of influencer videos show students roaming around campus and pointing out different amenities offered by the institution. This format could captivate prospective first-generation students who may have no other resource to help them visualize the college atmosphere, Carson says.

“These point-of-view videos give them a behind-the-scenes, almost voyeuristic, look at what it’s like to be a student,” Stevens says. “You familiarize them with the environment to ease them into taking action.”

How to Build an Influencer Campaign

Colleges and universities are spending various amounts on influencer campaigns. Institutions can build an effective grassroots movement by pushing marketing materials seeded from students’ social media feeds and boosting their posts to capture a broader audience.

Another way is by recruiting students or alumni with a strong following to serve in a more robust influencer campaign strategy, in which the institution feeds its newfound spokesperson with key messaging points.

However, a savvy social media user may still smell an advertisement from an influencer if a university’s marketing team isn’t careful, Carson notes. “You have to find who is speaking positively about the university, who’s authentically already saying these things. What you don’t want is to utilize somebody who has never spoken about the university and suddenly they’re a talking head and it doesn’t make any sense.”

Article and images from University Business.

Katie Flores, Associate Director of Programmatic Media Investment

According to a report published by AI Digital, 83% of digital ad revenue is projected to be controlled by Walled Gardens by 2027¹. A walled garden refers to how platforms such as Google, Meta, Apple, and Amazon control their platform insights and information such as ad inventory, user data, and performance metrics, limiting outside access.

The report also states that 90% of consumers spend their online time within these walled garden environments. Wow, 90%! That means only 10% of users spend their online time engaging with media that we can gain insights from and create leverageable audience segments to optimize against. Walled Gardens can pose a risk to the media ecosystem but also have undeniable benefits.

What is a Walled Garden & Why Are They So Attractive?

Walled Gardens have dominated the media industry for years. But why? Well, the attraction of working with Meta or Netflix for example should be obvious. The latter reported that their daily average viewing duration was two hours and in 1H’24, consumers streamed over 94 billion hours of content². Mass reach is an understatement. And Meta has mass reach locked down. Facebook has over 3 billion users. The rich, complex, and extensive user data stores gathered from those 3 billion users are just one of the many things that sets Meta apart. 

With the further deprecation of cookies and tracking capabilities, these Walled Garden’s first-party data stores will become even more sought after by marketers looking to gain deeper insights into their consumers. Their precision targeting capabilities are vast, the platforms are widely recognized and engaged millions of times a day, and buying on a platform such as Meta allows for a complete campaign journey from launch, campaign optimizations, and campaign wrap-up measurement. 

Along with the ease of working with a partner throughout the campaign cycle, Walled Gardens can also provide a full view into the consumer journey from discovery to purchase

The Dark Side: Transparency and Black Box Measurement

All of this sounds incredible, but what does it mean for a platform that isn’t a Google or Apple, or Meta? Well, sometimes the grass isn’t always greener inside of these Walled Gardens. Issues such as transparency, data collection and ownership, inflated inventory and fee costs, and trust are just the beginning.

Transparency has always been a hot topic when it comes to the Googles and Metas of our world. These companies have the right to withhold or provide a client with any information or data that they choose. And the transparency issue goes far beyond data but also applies to how the company’s ad tech algorithms work, how ads are served and where, and what audiences are seeing them. This is often referred to as Black Box Measurement and it’s something that the advertising industry is just starting to unpack and examine. How do you challenge and trust a platform that acts as judge, jury, and executioner without third party validation? This is a question that we as media buyers and planners should ask ourselves daily.

The Automation Illusion: When Simplicity Hides Complexity

Since third party measurement partners aren’t allowed to be utilized within these platforms, brands must rely on the honesty of the publisher, that they are providing them with the correct data, and that the data that brands can ingest into the platforms are actually being used for their intended purposes. The lack of transparency seems to be only increasing, under the guise of enhanced performance through automation. 

For example, Google’s Performance Max and Meta’s Advantage+ are newer products that significantly reduce advertiser control of where ads are serving and how they are appearing. While these platforms promote simplicity and automation, allowing their algorithms to handle the work as ‘best practice,’ good advertisers must scrutinize these directives, recognizing the platforms’ inherent drive for monetization. 

While we can’t directly track and validate these platforms with 3rd parties, we can conduct test & learns and other forms of measurement to make our own informed decisions. 

Scrutiny around transparency has come from not only platform users but government officials as well. This pressure has led to some closed ecosystems experimenting with ‘clean rooms’ to provide partners with more insights than ever before. For example, in 1H’24, Amazon launched AWS Clean Rooms ML. 

This product allows Amazon partners to use AWS’s proprietary machine learning technology to create audience modeling and predictive insights without Amazon having to disclose any of their raw data. It’s a step in the right direction but is it enough?

History Repeats: From Prime Time TV to Prime Video

I often compare Amazon Prime and Netflix, who just recently announced they will stop reporting paid subscribers come 1Q’25, to how media buyers viewed the Prime-Time daypart ‘back in the day.’ Before we had the granular and specific audience data reporting tools, us media buyers would pay ABC, CBS, and NBC exorbitant costs to air in those three to four hours of content a night solely because Nielsen’s Household reporting panel of 0.01% of the US population told us those shows had the highest ratings on tv. 

We trusted this data because of Nielsen’s longtime standing as a consumer reporting titan, similar to how we in the media industry trust the statistical data that Meta and Amazon supply us with. Looking back, we now know that Nielsen’s murky in-home panel system fraudulently reported inaccurate age, sex, and content data resulting in millions of ad dollars lost to inaccurate targeting tactics³. Even when it comes to billion-dollar, household institutions, question, examine, and challenge everything.   

Thus far we have covered issues with transparency, concerns over data ownership, and Black Box measurement processes. Which leaves us with one last thing to discuss, and that’s money. The premium content that a Netflix or an Amazon Prime provides to us consumers sure does come at a premium cost. 

In addition to award-winning content, their large user bases/scale, time spent in-platform, white-glove service offerings, measurement capabilities, and high-quality ad experiences mean that our bargaining power goes out the door if we want to continue engaging with our clients’ in-platform target audiences. 

All in all, Walled Garden pricing can be as inflated as these companies want since media buyers must purchase their content via Direct IO and not on the open market. Demand is high and supply is low. Econ 101!  

Regulatory and Industry Pushback: Cracks in the Walls

We are at the whim of these Walled Garden companies, and they know they hold the chips, but some government officials, tech companies, smaller publishers, and media buyers are trying to reclaim some of this power. On a global scale, the EU’s Digital Markets Act of 2023 has put a spotlight on creating fairer and more competitive marketplaces by regulating Walled Garden platforms from abusing their position in the market. 

In the United States, the California Consumer Privacy Act allowed California residents the right to share or exclude their data, and US antitrust laws aim to reduce monopolization of certain sectors where it has occurred. 

On a smaller scale, publishers, agencies, and ad tech companies are coming together to collaborate on solutions such as clean rooms, contextual and AI predictive targeting methods, building identity alternatives like UID 2.0, and sharing transparent rate/fee cards to challenge the way these closed ecosystems operate. 

For example, LiveRamp is continuing to grow its global data community to help solve inadequacies in available measurement and audience insights. While these Walled Gardens are closing in, innovations in data collection and collaboration from every corner of the industry are expanding.

Looking Ahead: Will 2026 Bring More Openness?

As we look at the rest of 2025 and 2026, will we see Walled Gardens continue to grow or will we see open access to their inventory across different platforms and increases in data and measurement transparency? 

For example, smaller-scale DSPs plan to start selling Amazon Prime inventory beginning in 2H’25, which will remove the costly commitments and barriers of entry of buying directly with these partners. Hopefully, this trend continues in a forward direction and more and more Walled Garden platforms will follow suit as we move into 2026.

Balance the Power but Don’t Ignore the Value

In conclusion, Walled Garden companies are necessary for the industry and economy, have undeniably advanced targeting capabilities, captivating and alluring content, and billions of users who engage with their platforms for hours on end. 

However, the lack of transparency, accountability, data ownership and measurement, and insights into where and when ads run is a problem that simply cannot be ignored. When planning for 2026, keep an eye out for publishers with ad tech partnerships that can provide complete clarity into their data control and usage capabilities, reporting and measurement potential, transparent cost and fee structures, and last but not least, partners you can trust.

1. Liveramp; eMarketer ↩︎
2. Netflix 3Q’24 Shareholder Letter, Netflix.com, What We Watched the First Half of 2024 ↩︎
3.  MNTN – How Nielsen Got It Wrong – and Performance TV Gets it Right, Stephen Graveman ↩︎

On That Great Business Show with Conall Ó Móráin, Co-Creative Directors Sam Moorhead and Mikey Fleming talk about the current state of advertising. They dive into the sheer volume of ads, the explosion of platforms, and the evolution of targeting. They also share their thoughts on how small businesses can build their brands – by using distinctive assets, choosing the most suitable platforms, and leaning into humour and a strong personality to help people connect.

Catch the full episode here.

This year, on International Epilepsy Day, Epilepsy Ireland and Connelly Partners joined forces once again to launch a powerful nationwide campaign focused on one clear message: Time. Safe. Stay. It’s a simple mantra — but one that could make all the difference if you ever witness someone having a seizure. 

Turning Stats Into Stories

How do you take a public health message and make people really care? You make it personal.

Backed by robust research from Amárach, the campaign centred around the lived experiences of people with epilepsy. Research showed that 88% of people in Ireland believe there’s a lack of understanding of epilepsy amongst the general public. So we got to work – putting real voices, real faces, and real emotions front and centre. These weren’t just testimonials. These were open, honest conversations about life with epilepsy. Fear. Frustration. Strength. Hope.

By showcasing these stories, we aimed to create empathy, spark curiosity, and ultimately, leave a lasting impression about the importance of seizure first aid — Time. Safe. Stay.

A Multi-Platform Approach That Hit Home

To maximise impact, we launched a multi-channel campaign — from powerful digital storytelling to social media, DOOH and more – ensuring visibility at both national and regional levels. Media volunteers bravely stepped up to share their experiences with press. Interviews delivered a deeply human look at epilepsy’s daily challenges.

Listen to the full Supercharged (RTE Radio 1) interview here.

A video campaign, voiced by legendary Radio DJ Rick O’Shea, was broadcast on Sky Television. 

Digital out-of-home adverts brought the message into busy shopping centres and high-footfall areas throughout the Capital and regionally, as well as in Galway’s Eyre Square. 

Digital Display ads featuring our media volunteers ran across various digital platforms, providing lots of touch points for the Irish public to engage with this important message.

Social media lit up – and were amongst the most successful strands of this multi-faceted campaign. TikTok alone delivered 1M+ impressions,  reaching 538k accounts with an exceptional 17.36% engagement rate — well above platform norms.

Across META (Facebook and Instagram), the campaign reached 570K users, blowing past the original goal of 157K, with an impressive 2.78% engagement rate, significantly above the 0.20% industry benchmark. 

Our Digital Audio campaign over-delivered – achieving a 90% Listen Through Rate (LTR) and reaching 40K+ unique users. 

The results proved that human connection is still at the heart of effective storytelling.

Read The Irish Times feature here. 

Abby Versaggi, Assistant Programmatic Media Buyer

I recently attended Scope3’s inaugural Landscape conference in New York City, where I had the opportunity to explore not only Scope3’s new and potentially game-changing ad tech but also the key challenges facing our industry—brand safety, supply chain optimization, sustainability, and the evolving role of AI. Here are some of the top takeaways from the conference:

The key themes of the day were safety, sustainability, and growth, with a strong focus on implementation. If a new technology can’t be demonstrated, used, deployed, and mastered, it won’t be adopted effectively—making proper execution essential for industry-wide change.

The Challenges of Brand Safety in Programmatic Advertising 

Current brand safety tools have fallen short, and the industry—particularly in programmatic advertising—continues to struggle with transparency.

Sustainability, media quality, and brand safety are all interconnected. A lack of innovation has made it difficult for advertisers to access URL- or page-level data, creating significant challenges in transparency. 

AI-Powered Solutions for Brand Safety

Recognizing the need for a better approach to brand safety, Scope3 announced an AI-powered brand safety and suitability product. This new tool gives advertisers greater control over the content their ads appear on while reducing unnecessary content blocking.

We know AI uses a lot of energy to make decisions. So does the current digital advertising ecosystem, especially programmatic. The differences are:

1. We have the chance to develop AI systems with sustainability in mind, unlike how the programmatic ecosystem was developed. 
2. AI can also replace and streamline tech, as it is more forgiving of inconsistent data due to its ability to learn and model.

For example, blocklists and category filters have traditionally flagged keywords on a page without considering their context, often leading to the blocking of safe content. Scope3’s AI-powered brand safety agent addresses this by analyzing the full context of any piece of online content, ensuring that decisions align with a brand’s exact requirements. Advertisers can also provide feedback to refine the model over time.

Low-quality and Made-for-Advertising (MFA) sites host excessive low-value content and drive inefficient ad spend. With custom AI agents, advertisers can avoid bidding on these sites; therefore, reducing unnecessary energy consumption and wasted ad dollars. 

Custom AI Models For Greater Transparency

This new ad tech allows brands to build their own models based on their business goals, and criteria for brand suitability. It can be integrated into Demand-Side Platforms (DSPs) and Supply-Side Platforms (SSPs) to offer a more comprehensive view beyond just a site name. 

Additionally, it explains to advertisers and publishers why content was blocked and allows them to adjust parameters as needed. This helps solve the black box problem that many AIs face by making data-driven decisions more observable and understandable. 

AI’s Role in Sustainable Programmatic Advertising

If we don’t address the inefficiencies in programmatic advertising, we risk wasting millions of tons of carbon. AI has the opportunity to add to these emissions or counteract these inefficiencies. Scope3 has developed a way to do the latter, ensuring sustainable evolution of the programmatic landscape.

Claire Eisenberg, Director of Corporate Communications

This year, we kicked off International Women’s Day at The Female Quotient Lounge at SXSW. The Female Quotient empowers millions of women globally by fostering inclusive workplace cultures through community building and visibility initiatives. As an agency that knows a thing or two about the importance of understanding your audience, their mindsets and motivations, this activation spoke to us.

As we entered the lounge, we were greeted by a library of books for the taking, all written by female authors, a partnership with UrbanStems to give women their flowers (literally), an agenda filled with powerful speakers and lots more.

One of the highlights was the “Advancing Healthcare for Women” panel, where experts came together to discuss the power of community, accessibility and using technology for good.

Here are our key takeaways:

Use technology and don’t be afraid of it. Our medical system is siloed, but with the support of AI, we can provide more holistic care, treating the entirety of the patient. – Dr. Sharon Malone

Innovation should be synonymous with accessibility. – Erica Taylor, Ph.D.

Valentine’s Day hits differently when you’re newly single, but hey—heartbreak has a way of teaching some unexpected lessons. My girlfriend recently broke up with me, and let’s just say I’ve had plenty of time to reflect. Here’s what being single has taught this CPer about contextual targeting.

❤️‍🩹 It’s all about being in the right place at the right time 

Contextual targeting focuses on hitting consumers at a time when they’re primed to receive your message. When approaching a girl you’ve never spoken to before, you want to make sure the time and place are right to make the biggest impact.

❤️‍🩹 Sometimes audiences are hard to reach, but understanding their habits makes it easier to get your message across 

Reaching niche audiences can be very difficult, but contextual targeting allows you to place your brand around the content that this audience would be consuming. Similarly, when you have a very specific type of girl in mind, understanding what they like can make it much easier to create a connection.

❤️‍🩹 Sharing cookies used to be the way to get to someone, but with more focus on consumer privacy, we need to look to alternative options 

With cookies eventually being sunset due to consumer privacy restrictions, advertisers have utilized contextual targeting to reach their audience. Nowadays, there is a much greater emphasis on safety around strangers. Buying a drink for someone (the human equivalent of sharing cookies) might not be the way to approach a girl.

❤️‍🩹 Surrounding yourself with relevant conversation makes the connection stronger and more authentic

When using contextual targeting, your ads will always show up around relevant content. When looking for someone to approach for a conversation, it will always be easier if you have similar interests to focus the conversation around.

❤️‍🩹 Keywords can often mean different things to different people 

Contextual targeting allows you to show up around keywords that otherwise might show up on a blocklist. For example, the word “shooting” might appear on a traditional blocklist, but for a brand looking to advertise around basketball content, it takes on an entirely different, brand-safe meaning. Similarly, an ex-girlfriend might have enjoyed being called “honey,” but this won’t be the case with everyone you meet. 

Signed, Anonymous 

Erin Mullaney, Media Director
Courtney Marlow, Senior PR, Social Media & Influencer Marketing Manager

The potential TikTok ban is shaking up the short-form video landscape, leaving creators, marketers, and brands holding out hope or scrambling to explore alternative platforms. As TikTok’s highly engaged audience and creator-driven approach hang in the balance, many advertisers are making contingency plans. According to recent eMarketer reports, 50.2% of marketers plan to shift their TikTok investment to YouTube or Meta if the app is banned. How do all these platforms differ? Below is a synopsis of audiences, current platform environments and performance to take into consideration of where to invest your resources amidst the uncertainty. 

Audience: Who’s watching? 

Short-form video consumption is on the rise, with 63% of adults aged 18+ watching these videos on their smartphones, 55% of whom do so weekly¹. 

TikTok has undeniably fueled this trend, but it hasn’t yet surpassed longer-established platforms in adult audience reach. YouTube leads the way, engaging 63% of the adult population, closely followed by Facebook at 62%. Instagram captures 44%, while TikTok trails with a reach of 33%.

A18+ Reach by Platform²:

• YouTube: 63%
• Facebook: 62%
• Instagram: 44%
• TikTok: 33%

Sources:
¹A18+ Resonate – Jan 2025
²Average across MRI Simmons, Emarketer, and Resonate A18+ Penetration % 

The disparity in reach largely stems from generational engagement with each platform. TikTok has surpassed Facebook among adult Gen Z users and has been steadily approaching Instagram’s more mainstream appeal. Meanwhile, YouTube and Facebook, with their longer presence in the market, maintain broad reach across generations, particularly among Gen X and Boomers. In contrast, Instagram’s core audience skews heavily toward Millennials and Gen Z.

Source: eMarketer Platform Population Penetration, US 2024

Environments: How do they differ?

TikTok has become infamous for its ability to pull users into endless scrolling on their For You Page, delivering content that uncannily aligns with their current interests. As users potentially move away from TikTok, they’ll likely seek similar entertainment on other platforms. This means these platforms will need to bridge the content gap, with their current areas of focus and user experiences outlined below.

YouTube 

YouTube stands out as a platform with the broadest reach across age groups, making it a versatile choice for connecting with diverse audiences. With its integration into Google’s ecosystem, YouTube leverages extensive search data, allowing content, organic or paid, to reach users with precision and intent. While long-form horizontal videos remain prominent, YouTube Shorts, introduced as of 2021 in the U.S., represents a significant evolution. Shorts are increasingly featured in search results, offering users the flexibility to consume shorter, bite-sized content. The platform’s dual focus on search-driven discovery and content variety makes it a powerful tool for brands and creators alike.

Instagram & Facebook 

Instagram Reels is integrated into the Instagram app, where users can seamlessly transition from their feed to a TikTok-like Reels experience. While trends on Reels tend to be slightly delayed from TikTok, Instagram has evolved from a personal “highlight reel” to a discovery-focused platform, offering content tailored to user interests. Similarly, Facebook Reels appear in users’ feeds, and once clicked, users enter the Reels feed. Facebook is also pushing Reels content in an effort to drive more engagement on its platform.

Time Spent

The most significant distinction between TikTok and other platforms lies in user engagement time. TikTok’s finely tuned algorithm captivates users for an average of 51 minutes daily, far outpacing other platforms. By comparison, YouTube users spend an average of 36 minutes per day, Instagram users 35 minutes, and Facebook users 32 minutes¹. With potentially freed-up consumption time following the potential TikTok ban, it will be interesting to see if consumer behaviors shift—and whether one platform, through user preference or ongoing updates to enhance engagement, begins to close the gap.

¹Source: eMarketer Time Spent, US 2024

Performance: What Are They Good At?

While the activity of scrolling through short-form videos is similar across platforms, performance in the paid advertising space varies. Across campaigns, a few trends have emerged. YouTube Shorts is the most cost-efficient in terms of CPM, likely due to slower adoption and lower advertiser demand since rolling out Short-specific paid ads in late 2023. However, it falls behind Meta Reels and TikTok in average watch time.

TikTok strikes an impressive balance, offering the highest CTR, lowest CPC, and moderate costs, while maintaining competitive video watch times. Meta platforms (Instagram and Facebook) deliver slightly lower action metrics but benefit from marginally higher average watch times.

For conversion campaigns, Meta Reels appears to be the better alternative, while YouTube Shorts is ideal for cost-effective reach. If advertisers reallocate budgets amidst the TikTok uncertainty, Meta is predicted to see more reallocation dollars and thus increased competition. Therefore YouTube Shorts could remain a cost-efficient alternative.

Final Thoughts

As the potential TikTok ban looms, it’s important for brands and marketers to adapt by exploring alternative platforms, encompassing both organic and paid social strategies, as well as influencer marketing. Each platform offers nuances and unique advantages, and TikTok’s dominance in entertainment will undoubtedly be missed. However, with engaged and diverse audiences spread across multiple platforms, there are ample opportunities to evolve your strategy and connect with users where they are now—and where they’re headed in the near future.

Michele Hart-Henry, Managing Director, Connelly Partners Health

In this time of predictions, prognostications and resolutions, we reviewed a few healthcare engagement trends we expect to see more of in 2025 and beyond. These trends are presented in no particular order. Nor are they ranked in importance. Instead, it’s a semi-random list of the things we find interesting in today’s healthcare marketplace. Critically, though, all the research and articles we read to compile this list were woefully short on insight into consumer response to any of these developments. Therefore, because healthcare, at its core, is inherently about humans, we’ve added our thoughts about consumer acceptance of these predictions based on their current or anticipated behaviors. 

Convenience-Driven Strategic Partnerships

In Brief: Partnerships between healthcare providers and technology companies merge clinical expertise with innovative solutions, streamlining patient care and improving accessibility.

Examples: Amazon’s One Medical partnership with Cleveland Clinic demonstrates how collaborations simplify healthcare delivery. Through Amazon’s ecosystem, patients benefit from integrated appointment scheduling, 24/7 telehealth services, and medication reminders. Similarly, ride-app company Lyft is partnering with health systems through Lyft Healthcare to improve access to care by providing free or low-cost rides to those who may have transportation issues that interfere with their ability to access needed care.

Consumer Response: According to research by McKinsey and others, convenience significantly influences consumers’ health choices. Factors like location, accessibility, appointment scheduling ease, waiting times, and access to care without disrupting their daily routines rank high in patient satisfaction scores. Patients appreciate the convenience and comprehensive care these partnerships provide. Integrating health services into platforms they use daily, like Amazon or Lyft, makes healthcare more accessible and user-friendly.

Future: More collaborations that create ease, convenience, and accessibility will likely occur, such as between wearable tech companies like Fitbit and hospitals, enabling real-time health monitoring and preventive care programs. Or Apple and its Smartwatch collaborations with research initiatives and institutions.

AI-Driven Information Delivery

In Brief: AI is transforming healthcare by delivering personalized, timely information to patients, improving engagement and satisfaction.

Examples: NHS Scotland is trialing an AI-powered physiotherapist named Kirsty to address back pain and reduce wait times. Patients receive same-day virtual appointments and personalized care plans via a mobile app. In the US, organizations like Buoy Health use AI-powered tools to help assess symptoms, while Mayo Clinic uses an AI chatbot to provide accurate, personalized information about conditions and treatments based on user queries. For example, if someone asks about managing diabetes, it might give meal-planning tips, glucose-monitoring advice, and links to clinical guidelines. Lirio, a Tennessee-based behavior change management company, uses AI-powered tools to deliver personalized “nudges” to promote positive health behaviors.

Consumer Response: While many patients value the efficiency and accessibility of AI tools, they remain cautious about their accuracy and the lack of human interaction. Kirsty’s initial reception highlights appreciation for prompt care, though long-term success depends on user experience and outcomes. Perceptions of AI chatbots vary based on age, education level, and familiarity with technology, affecting acceptance and trust levels.

Future: AI could evolve into real-time health coaching tools, for example, alerting diabetic patients about glucose level trends or providing preventive care insights based on wearable data. AI chatbots in healthcare offer promising benefits in personalization, accessibility and patient engagement; however, addressing concerns related to trust, empathy, and data security is crucial for broader acceptance and effective utilization.

Omnichannel Patient Connection

In Brief: As noted above, convenience and choice are the hallmarks of healthcare consumerism. Engaging patients through multiple platforms – of their choosing – ensures consistent communication and fosters stronger relationships throughout their healthcare journey.

Examples: Kaiser Permanente integrates mobile apps, email, telemedicine portals, and in-person visits to provide a seamless patient experience. Beyond EPIC or other EMR-based portals, empowering omnichannel tools such as Canada’s Telus Health’s Home Health Monitoring (HHM) enable patients to monitor their health metrics at home and share this information electronically with their healthcare providers. This facilitates proactive care management and potentially creates positive behavior management among health consumers. 

Consumer Response: Patients value the flexibility to choose their preferred communication channels. This approach increases satisfaction and loyalty by meeting patients where they are, both physically and digitally. Moreover, as these tools evolve to support health consumerism and positive behavior change, satisfaction with and loyalty to their providers will only increase. 

Future: In addition to currently available channels, healthcare providers will continue to incorporate Augmented Reality (AR) or Virtual Reality (VR) into their consultations and behavior change programs or deploy customized wearable notifications to create even more engaging and personalized experiences.

Consumerism in healthcare isn’t new; however, health organizations must continue to evolve in addressing the demand for care and communicating on consumers’ terms, meeting them where, how, and when they want to be met.