For any company to sell successfully, it must target specific consumer segments. This partitioning shapes how marketers design products and services, set prices, strategically position offerings and develop promotional strategies.

Conventionally, segmentation is based on geography, demographics, psychographics and consumer behavior.

This year, marketers should revisit long-standing segmentation criteria and processes. “2026 isn’t the year segmentation suddenly becomes important,” said Richard Walker of Mustard Market Research. “It’s the year when the gap between static audience models and real-world behavior becomes too wide to ignore.”

Widening the gap is “artificial intelligence (AI) and automation … accelerating faster than most audience strategies can keep up with,” Walker explained. “People are interacting across fragmented channels, and decisions are increasingly made in milliseconds.”

This means segmentation must shift from static, non-personalized categories to a dynamic process that continually tracks how technology changes consumer behavior and expectations.

New consumer

Digitization and emerging technologies, such as AI-powered chatbots like ChatGPT, have changed what consumers want from brands. “People expect the experiences they receive from brands to be intuitive, intelligent and deeply human,” Minders, a marketing firm, said in December 2025. “Brands that win won’t be the ones chasing trends. They’ll be the ones listening better, moving smarter, and designing every touchpoint with care.”

Minders identified several consumer trends emerging in 2026. First, “customers are engaging in more human, less visible ways — through feedback, community, referrals, content and even low-friction behavior like not … returning products [that don’t meet their expectations].”

Accordingly, Minders said companies in 2026 need to “design for joy … through intentional, personalized surprise” to cut through the internet’s increasing noise. “In a fragmented digital landscape, these experiences become unifying moments of connection.”

Macroeconomic realities also are at play. “Inflation, tariffs and economic pressure are making every purchase feel riskier. People are thinking twice, or walking away entirely.”

Lastly, “brands are becoming decision partners, not just sellers,” noted Minders. “They’re narrowing options, previewing outcomes, and guiding users toward what actually fits. Reducing friction in decision-making means prioritizing clarity over volume.”

Legacy segmentation

For most marketers, “it’s tempting to view segmentation as a ‘set it and forget it’ initiative,” noted the American Marketing Association (AMA) in August. “But in today’s environment, static segments based on outdated behaviors or assumptions can do more harm than good.”

That is because “consumers are not only shifting their values and habits, they’re doing so quickly and in ways that don’t always align with traditional demographic buckets,” the AMA explained. “Work-life routines have transformed. Technology has introduced new touchpoints and expectations. And financial pressures and volatility are rewriting how people define value.”

These changes make “legacy segmentation,” which “relies on static data, long-form surveys, and time-intensive processes that can take months to complete,” obsolete, often yielding inaccurate results by the time they are released. “Even more critically, the outputs often lack emotional depth or contextual nuance,” the AMA noted.

New research

Marketers revisiting their segmentation strategy in 2026 should use “conversations and mobile-first … chat-based .. engagement [to] not only increase response rates and completion but … also create a more immersive, candid research experience,” the AMA said. This communication should “lean into how people naturally communicate on their phones [with] intuitive interactions.”

Also, the research phase “doesn’t have to be a multi-month initiative with a fixed start and end,” the AMA said. “Modern mobile-based methodologies break long surveys into modular, recontactable touchpoints — using text message-based notifications to seamlessly pick up where you left off.”

Research also needs to blend quantitative and qualitative data “seamlessly,” the AMA noted. “Today’s most impactful segmentations go beyond ‘math’ and incorporate the nuance of qualitative insight.”

Accordingly, marketers should integrate open-ended responses, video diaries and projective exercises into the foundational research. “These richer inputs shape smarter segments and bring them to life in more compelling ways,” the AMA said.

Invariably, research needs AI to manage “the rise of unstructured data in segmentation, [which] has created new opportunities to support the analytical process.”

The output of this approach to research “goes beyond charts and cluster maps,” the AMA stressed. “They include dynamic, visual outputs like short-form video profiles, mobile-optimized digital personas and shareable playbooks that help teams apply insights in real-world decisions.”

Rise of living segmentation

Once research is complete, marketers need to define segment criteria and determine who qualifies for each category.

The first step is “blending … survey insight combined with digital footprints, social sentiment and even AI-generated patterns,” said Walker of  Mustard Market Research.

The next step is to focus on customer mindset: “think ‘why’ not ‘what,’” Walker said. “Understanding the ‘why’ behind choices (motivations, moods, intentions) is crucial.”

Using that approach, segmentation becomes “a dynamic model that evolves with real-world behavior rather than relying on a single moment in time … demanding an always-on approach,” Walker noted. So marketers need to “design” their segments “for evolution, [to ensure] both depth and agility.” Segments should “live” within customer relationship management software, media targeting and campaign planning, he stressed.

AI is crucial in such segmentation exercises as it “detects movement between segments, signaling when attitudes shift and interventions are needed,” said Walker.

These changes are likely “never spotted manually,” according to a blog on Customer.io, a consultancy. Such segment descriptions can be: “Users who exhibit these 12 micro-behaviors are three times more likely to churn in the next 30 days” or “Customers with this combination of product usage plus email engagement plus support interactions are primed for an upgrade conversation.”

That detailed and nuanced segmentation means marketers’ “lifecycle programs stay relevant without constant manual maintenance,” said Customer.io. “Nailing predictive segmentation gives lifecycle teams the ability to act on signals before they become problems or missed opportunities.”

What segments can offer

Regardless of each segment’s characteristics and evolution, marketers need to ensure each customer category offers experience over product. “Products can be copied. Experiences can’t,” said Denyse Drummond-Dunn of C3Centricity, a consultancy.

Also, it’s what customers want, as “73% of consumers rank experience as a top purchasing factor,” she said. “The brands that succeed in 2026 will deliver experiences that feel effortless, memorable and emotionally resonant.”

Another cross-segment component is “transparency as a trust multiplier,” said Drummond-Dunn. “80% of consumers want to know ingredient origins and ethical practices (label Insight). [In] 2026, consumers won’t accept vague claims, they’ll expect real-time proof.”

Aside from increased brand trust perception, “customers will pay a 16.4% premium for [transparency], rising to 25% in categories like eggs and dairy,” said Drummond-Dunn. “Transparency doesn’t just build trust, it creates tangible value.”

That openness has to demonstrate the brand’s positive impact on the community and environment. “The growth edge in 2026 will come from fusing [sustainability] with wellness and sensory storytelling,” she said. “73% of global consumers would shift habits to reduce environmental impact.”

Finally, within each new segment, marketers need to ensure “personalization at scale,” Drummond-Dunn said. “Generic is over. Consumers expect brands to treat them as individuals. 76% of consumers switch brands if they feel misunderstood. By 2026, AI personalization … will move from novelty to necessity.”

Over time, these customizations and values will “no longer [be] differentiators but baseline expectations,” she said. “Experience transparency, personalization and sustainability will not be options. They will be the baseline.”