McKinsey Showcases Consumer Trends for 2026

McKinsey & Company released the main consumer trends for 2026 on June 22, highlighting the implications of rapid technology development and AI when it comes to the way people shop. This report includes data from surveys across five markets, as well as insights from the global network of McKinsey & Co., outlining the strength and nature of the four trends: the new tech-driven path to purpose, the health revolution, the experience economy, and the resourceful consumer.

The new tech-driven path to purchase dives into Gen Z’s use of AI and social media when shopping, showcasing how these became determining factors in their decisions. Reportedly, 28% of Gen Z is online shopping using AI, while baby boomers sit at 16%. Moreover, 60% of Gen Z uses AI overview on Google, while only 29% of baby boomers do.

When it comes to the role that social media plays in all of this, it has been shown that 23% of the Gen Z participants discover brands through it, while 28% do it through physical stores, and 18% discover them through friends and family. Only 7% of baby boomers find brands through social media. 34% of Gen Z also believes that digital platforms play an important role when shopping, with 16% of baby boomers agreeing.

Contrary to the statistics, Gen Z is also the generation that is most skeptical of both traditional search engines and digital platforms and AI, compared to baby boomers.

Since 2023, overall web traffic has been down by 8% due to the rise of AI, but traditional search remains relevant to this day. With AI, consumers get faster responses with fewer clicks, while also getting additional information, because artificial intelligence doesn’t only draw data from official sites, but it uses a wide range of third-party sources, such as online forums or blogs. For brands, this means their influencing opportunities are being reduced, so they need to be careful when it comes to the content that exists about them on the internet and provide as much context as possible on their sites, the McKinsey report shows.

Best practices for brands are offering clear, structured, and scannable content on their sites (such as FAQs and lists), detailed materials, and accurate, consistent messaging across platforms.

In the future, it’s likely that AI-enabled purchases will be an option as well. The rise of agentic commerce will introduce a “dual front door”, where consumers can complete their purchase journeys either through retailer AI tools or within generative AI platforms. Companies like Shopify, Walmart and Amazon are beginning to align around common standards for AI-enabled transactions.

As AI use grows, brands will need to be more strategic about where they participate and where they seek to retain control, according to the study.

Health and wellness have become focal points of interest for consumers, with areas such as heart and gut health, cognitive function, and stress being taken into consideration when shopping. 50% of consumers said that they’re actively reducing their intake of artificial ingredients, sugar, alcohol, and highly processed foods, and although most surveys show that consumers care about their health, less than half feel like they are achieving their wellness goals, a finding that was most pronounced in Germany and France.

This expansion has been mainly driven by technology, because people have more access to consumer health topics and safety measures. People can track their health with smartwatches, glucose monitors, and fitness trackers, where they can see nutrient intake, sleep quality, calories burned in a day, and heart health in real time.

75% of Gen Z uses smart tools, followed by 73% of millennials, then 55% of Gen X, and 32% of baby boomers, as per the McKinsey report.

When it comes to GLP-1, a medication that’s becoming increasingly more popular, consumers were shown to be pretty eager to use it in the US, with at least one in six households having at least one member who’s tried it since June 2024, with recent projections anticipating that 25 million people in the United States could be on GLP-1 treatments by 2030. In Brazil, 35% of consumers stated that they don’t use it due to money concerns, but 44% stated that they would if prices would decline. Europe currently sits at 2% GLP-1 users, reflecting lower drug availability, more constrained reimbursement environments, and, in most countries, lower obesity rates.

As consumers gain more access to real-time health data, companies are met with both risk and opportunity. Even though people pay more attention to ingredients and possible health risks, they are also willing to try all kinds of healthy alternatives and new products. A plus for companies could be the different needs that come with new, emerging products alongside new interventions and tools. For example, GLP-1 use has been linked to reduced muscle mass, spurring innovations aimed at preserving strength and bone density, the Mckinsey report shows.

Some lesser discussed areas of medicine are also gaining attention, with issues like perimenopause, age-related testosterone declines, gut health, and metabolic aging coming into the spotlight. New solutions are coming out, and wellness research points discovered five distinct consumer segments: “maximalist optimizers”, who actively experiment with science-backed products and technologies to improve outcomes; “health traditionalists,” who tend to rely on established routines and familiar approaches to wellness; “health strugglers,” who value wellness but often feel dissatisfied with their progress and overwhelmed by the difficulty of achieving their goals; “confident enthusiasts,” who prioritize wellness and fitness and are self-assured in their routines; and “wellness shirkers,” who engage less actively with wellness overall.

Maximalist optimizers, who are more likely to be Gen Z and millennials, represent about 25% of wellness consumers and more than 40% of market spend.

According to the McKinsey report, consumers in both mature and emerging markets continue to prioritize experiences that make them feel like their time was well spent. Between 2023 and 2026, the global experiences market grew 2.6%. The market for travel experiences has been exceptionally fruitful, growing by 4.4% from 2023 to 2025. Restaurant growth has been, however, declining by 1% since pre-COVID-19. These shifts are reshaping how physical space is used and where businesses choose to invest.

The thing to take into consideration here is that the meaning of “experience” is also being reshaped, with digital and at-home formats becoming substitutes or complements to in-person experiences, which in turn forces companies to be creative and move towards a more integrated, omnichannel experience strategy.

Customers were asked what they would do with USD200 to treat themselves, and the most common answer was “save it for a vacation”. In this category, baby boomers were most likely to say this, compared to Gen Z, of which 12% have opted more for at-home experiences, saying that they’d splurge on entertainment. Health and wellness, despite its rising importance, was only named a top splurge category by 8% of consumers overall.

People don’t only want to travel, but they also want total comfort while doing so, and are willing to spend their money on premium, high-value out-of-home experiences. The luxury hotel market has grown by 6% from 2023 to 2025, compared with roughly 3.5% for hotels broadly. At the same time, respondents across generations say that cost remains the primary factor when making an experience-related purchase. This may be a contributing factor to why consumers are allocating a growing share of their time to activities such as digital entertainment, social media, and wellness routines, often in pursuit of lower-cost ways to achieve emotional benefits.

Companies are now trying to build a stronger brand personality, either through partnerships or by creating unique experiences based on their products.

When purchasing essentials, the resourceful consumer tends to switch brands, adjust pack sizes, and seek promotions. Initially, these behaviors could be described as coping mechanisms, but they slowly became something more structural. Many consumers nowadays are using creative ways to stretch their budgets, from buying secondhand to recreating services by themselves and extending the life of their products.

82% of consumers globally say they are using items longer before replacing them, 69% are repairing products rather than discarding them, and 68% say they are actively reducing waste. 30% of consumers claim they’re buying apparel secondhand, with 20% saying the same across other categories. Half of them claim they’re “DIYing” services they previously paid for, from beauty treatments to house repairs. Half of Gen Z actively seeks DIY inspiration online, particularly from influencers focused on stretching budgets, and half report purchasing secondhand every two to three months.

Interestingly, the McKinsey report also points out that more high-income consumers claim they’ve been buying from resellers and DIYing than low-income consumers, which highlights that these behaviors are becoming more of a choice, rather than a necessity.

For businesses, this trend creates a more complex playing field. Competing on price alone is insufficient, because consumers are optimizing across multiple dimensions of value-up-front cost, as well as durability, versatility, and the ability to repair or resell a product over time.

Resale markets are not the only ones involved in this discussion though, and in the UK, fast-growing grocery discount retailers, such as Aldi and Lidl have forced incumbents to rethink their pricing, product quality, assortment, and cost structure. Value has become very important to most customers, and businesses are required to change approaches and keep their clientele by proving that their prices are worth it.

Value-first thinking starts with removing unnecessary costs from products and operations, whether by offering fewer but better-designed SKUs, tightening control over input costs, or reengineering products to improve durability and usability while lowering production expense. The focus on value also elevates the roles of functions like procurement, product development, and supply chain, which are often best positioned to reduce costs without eroding product quality.