The report positions 2026 as the inflection point where marketing moves decisively from generative AI pilots and proofs of concept to agentic execution at scale.

Drawing on industry research from Gartner, Forrester, McKinsey, Anthropic, HubSpot, and Netcore’s operating insights across global enterprises, the report concludes that consumer agentic marketing in 2026 will be defined by multi-agent systems, Brand Twins, Agentic Commerce, human attention, outcomes-based pricing, and profitability.

Multi-agent systems move from pilots to performance

A core finding of Netcore Agentic Predictions 2026 is the transition from isolated AI assistants to orchestrated multi-agent systems (MAS) that operate across the full marketing lifecycle; content, segmentation, decisioning, optimisation, and insights.

The data points to rapid momentum:

• Multi-agent systems outperform single-agent architectures by 90.2% on complex tasks (Anthropic, 2025)
• 56% of organisations report improved scalability after adopting multi-agent approaches (Forrester, 2025)
• 50% of enterprises say MAS adoption creates competitive differentiation (Gartner, 2025)
• Gartner recorded a 1,445% surge in multi-agent system–related queries between 2024 and 2025

The report notes that specialised agents now operate under an always-on orchestrator, continuously adapting to customer behaviour and business goals in real time.

This replaces fragmented stacks and manual coordination with self-optimising marketing engines.

Brand Twins replace reach with relevance

The report introduces Brand Twins as a defining construct of the consumer agentic era. These are always-on, brand-owned AI agents that deeply understand individual consumers and act on their behalf, moving marketing away from mass outreach toward relevance at scale.

The urgency is driven by attention collapse:

• 73% of consumers skim content, while only 27% engage meaningfully (HubSpot)
• The average human attention span has fallen to 8.25 seconds, lower than a goldfish’s 9 seconds (Samba Recovery)

According to the report, Brand Twins continuously learn consumer intent, preferences, and behaviour, enabling fewer but more relevant interactions. Marketing becomes quieter, more contextual, and increasingly trust-led.

Agentic commerce reaches a tipping point

E-commerce is identified as the first sector to fully feel the impact of agentic AI. Key indicators cited in Netcore Agentic Predictions 2026 include:

• By 2030, AI agents will influence 20% of e-commerce transactions (Gartner)
• By 2028, 33% of organisations will adopt agentic AI
• By 2028, 15% of AI agents will make daily autonomous decisions (Gartner)

The report predicts the emergence of agent-to-agent (A2A) commerce, where brand agents and consumer agents negotiate pricing, promotions, inventory, and recommendations in real time, making commerce dynamic, adaptive, and continuously optimised.

Human attention becomes the ultimate growth moat

As consumers increasingly rely on AI agents to filter choices, the report forecasts a dual-audience reality – humans and AI agents acting in parallel.

This shift elevates attention as the scarcest resource:

• Human attention spans declined from 12 seconds in 2000 to 8 seconds by 2013, and continue to compress
• AI agents act as gatekeepers, screening relevance before humans engage

The report concludes that brands capable of appealing to human emotion and agent logic simultaneously will convert attention into loyalty, customer lifetime value, and long-term growth.

Outcome-based pricing replaces martech sprawl

One of the report’s strongest predictions is a structural reset in how marketing technology is priced and evaluated.

The data highlights widespread inefficiency:

• 55% of marketers are dissatisfied with martech cost versus value (MarTech)
• Martech cost sensitivity rose from 37% in 2023 to 61% in 2024
• 99% of marketers underutilise their martech stack
• 40% cannot measure ROI, and 18% report no clear ROI (SalesManago)
• 47% of leaders cite stack complexity as the barrier to realising value (McKinsey)

The report predicts a shift toward outcome-based pricing, where brands pay for measurable results, conversions, revenue, and customer lifetime value—rather than licenses and usage.

The CMO is redefined

As execution becomes autonomous, leadership accountability moves upstream.

65% of CMOs believe AI will fundamentally change their role within the next two years (Gartner, 2025)

Netcore Agentic Predictions 2026 forecasts the evolution of the CMO into a Chief AI and Chief Profits Officer, responsible for orchestrating AI systems and directly owning growth outcomes.

“2025 was about proving that AI works. 2026 will be about proving that it delivers,” said Rajesh Jain, Founder & MD, Netcore Cloud. “As autonomous agents take over execution, marketing’s real constraint is no longer technology – it’s attention, outcomes, and accountability. Agentic systems fundamentally change the equation by making growth measurable, continuous, and owned. This is not a tooling upgrade; it’s a new operating model for marketing.”

The Software as a Service is an interesting technological advancement that allows third-party providers to distribute software applications to customers over the internet.

This has purged the advent of amazing software applications such as Hubspot, Zoom, Google Workspace, Marketo, etc leading to an accentuation of the Industry and its munificent impact on tech enthusiasts.

The Software as a Service industry in Africa is set to go above waters with emerging tech experts exploring the industry and leveraging on trends to offer solution-oriented schemes for businesses.

The industry’s growth is influenced by a myriad of factors including drastic digital transformation, made possible by tech founders and supportive government policies poised to transcend technology on to greater heights through investment and infrastructure.

Businesses in Africa are at the receiving end of the benevolence SaaS offers. Because SaaS majorly hosts applications over the cloud, it has led to the increase of efficiency for companies as it lowers IT cost and also improves the service of their staff, granting them the opportunity to glean tech-based knowledge and technical know-how of technological products in trend. It surely shouldn’t be surprising why SaaS is on the rise in Africa.

Below are several reasons why:

1. Digital Transformation:

The world has witnessed a trajectory from traditional hacks down to full blown era of digitalisation, which of course doesn’t exclude africans. African business owners are rapidly moving with time and trends by integrating their businesses to suit digital inclinations such as the SaaS.

This digital transformation through SaaS and its offering of flexible and scalable applications builds up the zeal for businesses to thrive beyond limits.

2. Government Support:

The support of the government gives reason to SaaS continually leaping to an all end high. To improve and bolster technology, African governments are committed to implementing policies instrumental to the growth of digitalisation, given that its prospects are favourable and highly beneficial.

This can be easily traced with the latest efforts from Nigeria’s National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA) promoting and canvassing for SaaS’ adoption being a part of the economy’s policy.

3. Investment in Tech Infrastructure:

Tech Infrastructure basically pegs the investment of tech bodies and government towards technology equipment; internet development and provision of powered networks for mobile connectivity such that it becomes easily accessible by many.

These infrastructure, therefore encourage business owners to adopt applications distributed by Saas.

With over 600 million mobile subscribers in Africa, the continent boasts one of the highest mobile penetration rates globally; more proof of the engagement and proliferation Saas introduced into the picture.

SaaS’ Advantages for African Businesses

It’s in no doubt that African businesses have been major benefactors of SaaS and its applications.

However, it’s important to understand key features that software developers and tech founders weave into the creation of software applications enabling numerous benefits enjoyed by business owners.

Some of Saas’ advantages includes:

1. Scalability and Flexibility:

By scalability, it means that SaaS and her applications are designed to adapt to changes seamlessly without thrusting difficulties for its users.

This is crucial for businesses in Africa because of the tremendous fluctuations in her economies. These platforms can be tweaked to inculcate new developments from individual businesses without interrupting already existing settings.

2. Cost Efficiency:

Instead of an outright purchase of a software that might dwindle the financial strength of businesses, SaaS as a distribution model allows users to typically pay a recurring subscription fee, which can be monthly or annually, inadvertently minimising cost for business owners.

SaaS being the service providers for the subscribed applications also handle the maintenance, upgrade and security of the applications as payments are all integrated into the subscription package.

This is clear proof that with SaaS, you don’t need to break the bank before you access advanced technologies beneficial to your bidding.

3. Accessibility and Mobility:

The penetration rates of the internet and mobile network have grown overwhelmingly. This lays the foundation for SaaS as its applications can now be accessed anywhere and almost everywhere, even in remote places with low IT staples.

With high mobile penetration, SaaS solutions can be accessed anytime, anywhere, facilitating remote work and business continuity.

4. Security and Compliance:

Tech inventors and service providers design software applications with security measures that protects the application’s data from being easily hacked or invaded.

This is in consonance with modern tech international standards, ensuring that African businesses can protect sensitive data and meet regulatory requirements.

Interestingly, tech experts have projected that in 2030, the SaaS market in Africa would have witnessed explosive growth, harnessing a full charge of technology and its usable software applications.

This, however, doesn’t reduce the present beam SaaS has mounted on Africa’s tech terrain as drivers of this proliferation peeks into reality. These include Increased Internet Penetration, Emergence of Tech startups (hub), and Sector-specific solutions.

Mobile networks have gained advancement spreading across its reach to wider regions, in turn enabling wider adoption of SaaS.

Also, most African countries like Nigeria, South Africa, Kenya, and Egypt have her citizens throwing into the tech pool where most operations are streamlined with technological tools.

This improves the tech ecosystem for these countries, thus encouraging SaaS providers to position companies there that will attract both local and international interests. More interesting is how SaaS caters for specific sectors.

Tailoring software applications to deal with the needs of specific sectors; agriculture, health care, education, finance/banking, etc.

This spector-specific approach would serve ultimately as a springboard to SaaS’ growth in a few years to come as rightly projected.

Despite the glossy prospects of SaaS in Africa, there are concerns surrounding its operations that should be addressed. These challenges include:

1. Data Infrastructure: Mobile networks are present, yes, but its stability is usually a truncated wish. Mobile data is needed to run SaaS applications, interrupted data flow might lead to a slow functionality of the applications. Efforts should be geared to getting secured data networks across the continent to improve overall operations.
2. Regulatory Environment: Lots of people are prowling into SaaS and its services. This indicates both a positive and negative sign; people who are getting digitally aware and involved at the same time might get too comfortable with these applications and misuse its function to achieve malicious intentions. SaaS providers must therefore set a strict regulatory framework that guides the utilization of these applications, ensuring that users comply with both local and international data protection laws.
3. Talent Development: While there are innumerable users of SaaS, there are only a few software developers themselves in Africa. This is pitiful as major tech experts have limited knowledge of software creation, rather they only know how to use these applications and make the most out of it. There’s a need for skilled professionals to develop, deploy and manage SaaS solutions, hence the tech community in Africa should deliberately empower young tech enthusiasts who are willing to broaden their tech horizons with educational exposure needed to throw beneficial insights towards building technologies that would better and even surpass the invention of SaaS.

Conclusion

Software as a Service(SaaS) has evolved prominently as an industry in Africa ushering significant technological shifts and redirecting the productive ends of numerous businesses.

Businesses should fail not to enhance their services by leveraging the scalability, cost-efficiency, and accessibility of SaaS solutions.

Applications provided by Saas offer an array of advantages that can be strategically hijacked to drive innovative growth and achieve adequate standing amongst other tech giants.

SaaS holds a bright future for tech in Africa as its impact is bent on transforming the lives and economies of nations through innovative technological inputs that can compete among its counterparts a global landscape.

*The writer:

Hilary Utuke is the CEO of Korlod Works, a top Digital Marketing firm in Lagos. He’s authored four books including “Digital Strategies for Online Brand Visibility” and created Digital Luminary Pro (TM), a model helping Nigerian Thought Leaders connect with Millenials and GenZ audiences.

The integration, available in HubSpot’s App Marketplace, enables its clients to connect with customers using their preferred communication channel, to deliver a great customer experience and boost engagement and sales.

Numerous studies show that customers would rather message a business than call and many expect business messaging to become even more popular in future. Responding to its clients’ needs, HubSpot wanted to offer the best omnichannel experience. Now HubSpot’s clients can access Infobip’s market-leading omnichannel communications platform, as ranked by tech analyst Omdia. 

By syncing Infobip’s WhatsApp and SMS channels with HubSpot, businesses can send automated messages and updates to deliver faster and more efficient communication.

Businesses can accelerate sales by automating the sharing of payment links and generate automated support messages to deliver faster customer support. They can also offer enhanced security by providing verification and authentication codes to customers during login via fast and secure WhatsApp or SMS.

The integration is part of Infobip’s strategy to help Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) providers access a market-leading Communication Platform-as-a-Service (CPaaS), supporting businesses as they reinvent how they communicate with customers.

Scott Brinker, VP of Platform Ecosystem at HubSpot, said: “Our clients want to be able to interact with their customers on the right channel at the right time. With the Infobip integration, our customers now have access to market-leading customer communications over WhatsApp and SMS, helping them to enhance engagement, increase loyalty and ultimately drive sales.”

Veselin Vukovic, VP of Strategic Partnerships at Infobip, said: “More and more customers want to message a business than make a call. Businesses need to be where their customers are, which is why we’ve built an integration with HubSpot to offer its customers access to our best-in-class communications platform that provides a comprehensive range of capabilities and features.

Our integration with HubSpot demonstrates our commitment to building connected customer experiences.”

HubSpot App Partners are independent software vendors who have built an integration with HubSpot and been accepted to the App Marketplace. 

HubSpot’s App Partner Program is an ecosystem of valuable third-party integrations. App Partners comply with a set of requirements.