The Theatre of Transformation vs The Reality of Structural Stress
CAGNY 2026, my insights
The 2026 Consumer Analyst Group of New York meeting was framed as a moment of reset. Compared with the prior year, the language was more precise and less exuberant. Executives no longer relied on broad promises of transformation. Instead, they spoke in operational terms about agentic AI embedded into workflows, portfolios trimmed to core categories, ref…
