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AI and Data Dominate: How Digital Marketing Reinvents Itself in 2025
The Structural Shift in the Brazilian Digital Market
Brazilian digital marketing is not just undergoing incremental evolution in 2025—it is undergoing a structural transformation that will redefine strategies by 2026. After years of expansion based on lower media costs and generous conversion rates, the sector now faces a brutal saturation scenario. Paid ads have become more expensive, conversions have fallen, and the logic of growth at any cost has proven unsustainable[4]. The result? Smaller and less strategic companies have reduced investments, paused content, and entered standby mode. The more mature minority, however, transformed December into a month of structural adjustment, pivoting towards retention and automation[6]. This division between those who adapt and those who only react defines who comes out ahead today. The great catalyst for this change is artificial intelligence, which has left the experimental stage to become the operational infrastructure of campaigns. It is no longer a trend or a differentiator—it is a sine qua non condition for competing[2].
Data, AI, and Trust: The Triad That Will Separate Winners from Losers
Black Friday 2025 was an explosive proof of concept for this new dynamic. E-commerce registered an absolute record of transactions — 32.8 million on the day, a growth of 16.1% compared to 2024 — while physical retail declined by 1.9%[3]. But the most revealing number comes from another front: the projected revenue of around R$ 13 billion online, concentrated on platforms that dominate data, AI and trust[2]. Shopee exemplifies this perfectly, growing more than 90% in Black Friday sales compared to 2024, driven by volume, engagement and integration of media, logistics and live commerce[3]. Magalu, in turn, reinforced its strategy by replicating the media model with the ‘Das Blacks’ live event, which broke records with 19.3 million views and 22,000 simultaneous users[3]. What unites these cases is the ability to align three pillars: personalization at scale via AI, automated creative optimization and trustworthy transparency. In practice, models that cross-reference behavior, history, and intent signals allow for personalized offers in real time, surgically increasing conversion rates[2]. The second pillar — creative optimization — drastically reduces testing time and eliminates spending on versions that don’t convert, because automated analysis identifies which variations of text, image, and format perform best by audience segment[2]. The third pillar, often neglected, is transparent trust — real reviews, testimonials, and demonstrations are crucial for the Brazilian consumer, who in 94% of cases already makes online purchases and in 75% buys at least once a month[1]. Companies that treat AI as ethical infrastructure aligned with operational principles come out ahead. Those that use it as a trick die quickly.
What’s Coming Next: Automation, Live Commerce, and Mandatory Loyalty Programs
By 2026, the trends consolidated by Black Friday 2025 will deepen on three critical fronts. First: automation and chatbots as the operational standard. According to Gartner’s projection, 70% of customer interactions will be carried out by chatbots in 2025[5], a number that will only grow in 2026. This is not a reduction in humanization — it is a reduction in time wasted on trivial responses, freeing up teams for strategy. Second: live commerce and short videos as conversion drivers. The success of Magalu’s live stream was not accidental; it reflects a change in the behavior of 60% of consumers who have already bought based on content seen on social networks, especially Instagram and TikTok[1]. UGC (User-Generated Content) and collaborations between brands expand reach and trust organically. Third, and perhaps the most critical: the forced migration from ‘mass acquisition’ to ‘strategic retention’. With e-commerce on a growth trajectory — projected at R$224.7 billion by 2025[4] — the real differentiator lies not in capturing more demand, but in monetizing it with margin. Loyalty and automation are consolidating as paths to profitable growth in 2026[4]. Integration between channels also becomes non-negotiable; the purchase journey is hybrid, blending online and offline, and brands that do not connect these experiences will miss out on value opportunities. In short, 2025 closed an era of growth by volume and opened another of growth by efficiency. Those who do not reinvent their data stack, AI and automation by Q1 2026 will be left behind.
References
- On Digital Marketing — Digital Consumption in Brazil in 2025: data and trends for your brand
- E-commerce Brazil — Black Friday 2025: How digital marketing and artificial intelligence will separate those who sell from those who only show up.
- Marketing World — Black Friday 2025 consolidates digital shift and accelerates competition in retail.
- Terra — Brazilian digital marketing faces efficiency crisis
- Oxygen Web — Main Digital Marketing Trends in 2025 and 2026
- Mufi Marketing — These are the secrets of companies that made a lot of money with marketing in 2025.
