The annual Flux Trend briefing – The State We’re In – is a highly anticipated executive summary of where the world is, and where it’s heading. Using the acronym T.R.E.N.D.S. – representing six key trend pillars – the briefing identifies disruptive undercurrents that businesses should be watching, as they signal shifts in how we
live, work and play.

The State We’re In 2026
NAVIGATING THE DARK FOREST

“The Dark Forest” is a metaphor for the internet as a hostile environment where “digital predators” (bots, trolls, surveillance technologies, etc) lurk. What started out as a human-centric, public web to enable discovery, connection and community growth has turned into a toxic digital arena. The fact that the “dead internet theory” has become reality is forcing users and communities to retreat into private spaces to
eliminate the risk of being ambushed, or simply to speak freely.

It is an unusual form of suppression. The dark forest may seem quiet and devoid of activity but simply by making your presence known, now invites risk. Silence or concealment is fast becoming a form of self-preservation and ironically a new luxury and status symbol.

This is a significant swing of the pendulum, specifically for social media and it’s commercial arms where calling attention to oneself was not only expected but key to online business models. What happens when the loud, performative demands of mainstream digital platforms go silent? The ripple effect will affect, not only retail,
but shift the social cultural lens, which in turn will have a knock-on effect on civic engagement.

At Flux Trends we believe that, “to change the world, you first need to understand it”.

Here are six key trend pillars that will provide insights to where 2026 is headed.

TECHNOLOGY: The Dead Internet Theory Comes to Life

In mid-2025 we crossed a remarkable line. Bot generated content and engagement officially surpassed human internet creation and usage. It was a narrow margin – bot automated content accounted for 51% of all internet activity vs 49% human generated content. Unsurprisingly many asked the question: “How did we get here?”.

We’ve since discovered that 37% of these automated bots are malicious, while only 14% are “good bots”. By November insult was added to injury when it was revealed that synthetic content (AI-generated articles) had also eclipsed human-written articles. 

With this tipping point comes a new lexicon, as in, “online engagement is now manipulated with synthetic content and powered by “engagement farms”. (“engagement farms” meaning: “bot-run programmes that use manipulative social media tactics – the use of sensational or emotional content – designed to artificially boost likes, shares and comments for visibility).

Picking through bot-generated content and sidestepping synthetic sentiment just to ensure that you’re not on the receiving end of an engagement farm is going to be tiresome but necessary. A retreat from the dark forest is inevitable.

RETAIL & MARKETING: Learning to Speak to AI

Last year’s evolution from Generative AI to Agentic AI forced retailers into uncharted waters. When Google started offering buyouts to their search and advertising teams, eyebrows were raised.

Google built an empire around search advertising. It is the economic bedrock of the internet as we know it, so why are they dismantling their own foundation? Analysts like Joanna Williams – founder of Since Tomorrow – wrote that “Offering buyouts to these core teams signals they (Google) believe their fundamental business model has an expiration date. They’re seeing the death of attention-based commerce in their data.” In other words, we are witnessing the death of SEO (search engine optimisation) as AI agents become more prolific.

As AI agents become embedded into systems, retailers will need to switch to GEO (generative engine optimisation) instead of SEO because their customers will be using agents as a default. Not only are the words you use to place your company at the top of a list on a web browser no longer valid, but retailers need to rethink their customer communication and journey. We are rapidly moving into a space where retailers will no longer speak directly to their end customer but will have to deal with AI agents as an intermediary. All this is and we haven’t even contemplated the rise and impact of AI influencers…

ECONOMY: Slippery Slopes

For the past two years we’ve been tracking “the middle-class mirage”, the illusion of stability and prosperity for the middle-class. The ongoing cost-of-living crisis has created a demographic called A.L.I.C.E. (asset limited, income constrained but employed) meaning people with jobs, who were able to buy a car, but can no longer afford to pay rent, so they resort to living in their cars. This type of financial insecurity – one that many South African families know all too well – has driven them to gambling, and online gambling in particular

Sin taxes are a good indicator of how the world has shifted. Traditional sin taxes were cigarettes, alcohol and sugary drinks. Today’s sin taxes are vaping, cannabis and sports betting. Unlike previous sin taxes, online gambling has no friction between seeing an advertisement and placing a bet immediately on your phone

It was revealed last year that R1.5 trillion has gone to online gambling, a jump of 40.2% from the previous financial year. More worrying is that students are using their National Student Financial Aid Scheme (NSFAS) allowances to gamble online, often leading to deeper emotional and financial distress. Also revealed is that one fifth of SA Social Security Agency’s grant money was also being used for gambling.

As AI starts to cull jobs, for both entry level workers as well as pre-retirement managers, calls for harsher regulations, or banning, of online gambling advertising are growing louder.

NATURAL WORLD: Pre-Empting Extreme Weather Disasters

Extreme weather disasters due to climate change – whether they are wildfires caused by drought or floods from rogue hurricanes – are now accepted as annual occurrences rather than anomalies.

Last year, insurance companies adopted a concept called parametric insurance. This gauges the devastation of a disaster, not the fact that there was an extreme weather disaster. Now with a combination of AI and satellite imagery insurance companies can now flip the traditional disaster relief model – assisting people after a devastating weather event – to sending money to farming communities before the disaster hits to
enable them to buy whatever’s necessary to protect themselves, or crops and livestock, from the oncoming disaster.

For example, Google’s Flood Hub, nonprofit trail program sends early warning and unconditional cash to farmers before disaster strikes. Similarly, the international nonprofit GiveDirectly sends financial support to farmers in India days before a flood hits, with the help of Google’s AI-based flood forecasting that identifies at-risk villages.

DIPLOMACY: Digital Sovereignty

It was inevitable that technology would become political. In June last year, the state of Schleswig-Holstein in Germany banned the use of Microsoft TEAMs and other Microsoft software for all government work because it wanted to keep its data safe and stored inside the country. The Danish government followed suit and replaced

Microsoft Office with open-source software, LibreOffice. Tech sovereignty is not new but with the rise of a game-changer like AI, protectionist policies are increasing. It’s no longer just a question of data protection but a new quest for AI sovereignty and self-sufficiency in the development of AI technologies. This placed the spotlight on the trade of semiconductor chips as well as the minerals, including rare earth elements – needed to power and support AI infrastructure.

Rising tensions between China and Taiwan – who produce most of the chips that US tech companies rely on – sparked concerns about global supply chain access. In tandem, big tech companies have all started offering “Sovereignty as a Service” (SaaS) promising “sovereignty controls” to public and private entities, which include encryption and data localisation.

SOCIO-CULTURAL: The Shift to Analogue and Privacy

The concept of “second screen entertainment”, where filmmakers and entertainment companies like Netflix intentionally dumb down their content for audiences who are busy on their phones and watching “ambient TV”, just so that they can still follow the plot while still being distracted, must surely mark a new low in human evolution.

But there is hope on the horizon. 2026 has been heralded as the year we shift back to analogue. According to analysts social media peaked in 2022. Since then, time spent on social apps has been declining, especially among younger people.

The death knell was when Meta and OpenAI announced new social platforms that will be filled with AI generated short-form videos – in essence AI-automated and full of slop, creating another murky corner of the dark forest.

The same young demographic are increasingly turning to activities that require focus and presence: using “dumb phones”, experimenting with journaling, and hands-on hobbies. Why put yourself at risk and venture into the dark forest?