Executive Summary

While change in the digital age isn’t as sudden or widespread as people often assume, 2019 will bring some important new developments—in areas ranging from video to privacy to voice technology to social media, and beyond.

Is Facebook in trouble?

We expect its revenues will keep growing—and that the Facebook-Google duopoly will reign for another year. But we also predict significant user-engagement problems on the platform.

Will digital privacy still be a vexed issue in 2019?

It sure will. We predict marketers will have more blind spots about consumer behavior as they cope with privacy concerns (and privacy laws). And as consumers embrace internet of things (IoT) devices, they’ll discover they’ve brought a new slew of privacy problems home with them.

Will the “speaker wars” come to a head in 2019?

Actually, we predict that the main action in voice technology will soon leave smart speakers behind as voice assistants infiltrate a wide array of consumer devices.

Are big changes coming across the video landscape?

We predict several, including a glut (and consequent pullback in investment) in premium video content and an acceleration of consumers’ cord-cutting.

How will digital’s impact on retail play out in 2019?

It will be particularly visible in a transformation of physical stores as brick-and-mortar retailers strive to stay relevant to today’s shoppers. And increasing numbers of what started as digital-only retailers will add a physical-store dimension.

Will this report include other predictions?

It will—as well as noting some buzzy things that won’t actually have much impact next year.

WHAT’S IN THIS REPORT? This report gives our predictions for top digital trends of 2019, plus our predictions about some things (like the demise of the duopoly) that won’t happen next year.