Forrester's 2027 predictions: AI costs bite and human content returns.

Forrester predicts that rising AI costs will force B2C marketing leaders to scale back a third of their AI initiatives in 2027. Its B2B forecast, published the same day, says AI agents will influence 75% of business purchase decisions.

The consumer predictions, released on 21 October, also expect customer experience staffing to rise 20% after what Forrester calls overzealous cuts, with hiring focused on AI roles such as data scientists and AI experience designers. Human-generated content will become a top priority again for 50% of brands as AI content fills digital channels, and one in 20 consumers in the US and UK will abandon traditional shopping for conversations with AI. The cost squeeze comes from martech vendors moving to usage-based pricing, which turns every agent interaction and generated asset into a billable event.

On the business side, Forrester expects buyers to double their human interactions to check AI-generated recommendations, and two-thirds of providers to lose deals because buyers can't verify their claims. It also warns that marketing leaders will eliminate as many as 25% of roles in pursuit of AI efficiencies, and that most CMOs will then cut programmes or accept reduced capacity after overestimating the gains. Sharyn Leaver, Forrester's chief research officer, says the challenge for leaders in 2027 will be "gaining greater control without limiting growth".

These are forecasts rather than survey results: the releases give no data or method behind them, and the consumer prediction covers only the US and UK. Still, the direction is useful for Gulf budgets. Plan for AI's running costs as well as its set-up, keep people and evidence in the content, and make product claims easy for buyers and their AI tools to check.