January 14, 2026
Many of the most important ideas at the 2026 Consumer Electronics Show (CES) had direct implications for healthcare marketers. Across panels on data privacy, startup ecosystems, the growing role of Big Tech in health, and healthcare’s next decade, a consistent set of themes emerged. Together, they point to a future in which healthcare advertisers must move faster, navigate more complex landscapes, rethink where and how patients engage, and collaborate more deeply across the ecosystem.
Here are five key healthcare marketing takeaways from CES 2026.
1. State-by-State Privacy Expertise Is Foundational
A panel titled “Is Your Health Data Safe?” underscored a reality healthcare marketers already feel every day: privacy law in the U.S. is fractured, complicated, and only getting more so.
As panelists noted, healthcare data is now governed by a growing patchwork of state-level consumer privacy laws that extend well beyond HIPAA. These laws cover different datasets, impose different requirements, and evolve at different speeds (one panelist noted that “the US does privacy 50 different ways”). For marketers, that means state-by-state expertise is now table stakes for anyone activating data at scale.
Consumer expectations are changing alongside regulation. Patients and consumers are paying closer attention to how their data is collected and used. They’re not necessarily clicking “accept all cookies” blindly and moving on. Trust is an operational requirement, and it must be built from the ground up into data strategy and partner selection.
2. Speed Is Becoming as Important as Strategy
A panel looking toward “Healthcare 2035” highlighted that, increasingly, speed is more important than strategy. That may sound counterintuitive in an industry famous for caution, but it sheds light on the charge of today’s health marketers.
Privacy laws shift quickly. Platforms change policies overnight. AI-driven tools move from experimental to mainstream in a matter of months. In this context, even the most thoughtful long-term strategy can fail if an organization can’t adapt quickly enough.
For healthcare marketers, this means building operating models that favor agility: faster testing cycles and closer collaboration with partners who can move just as quickly when conditions change. Increasingly, execution speed determines whether a strategy ends up benefiting patients and brands.
3. Emerging Consumer Touchpoints Will Redefine the Patient Journey
Several CES panels hinted at a future where healthcare engagement extends far beyond traditional clinical settings and channels.
As the Center for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) and other institutions invest in tools that help patients manage chronic disease, new touchpoints are emerging throughout daily life. At the same time, consumers are already seeking health information through platforms like ChatGPT and Gemini, often before they ever speak with a provider. These tools can enhance the patient-provider relationship by enabling more informed, efficient, and human interactions.
For healthcare marketers, the implication is clear: the patient journey is becoming more distributed and more continuous. Marketing strategies must account for moments of education and decision-making that happen across consumer technology platforms, AI interfaces, and digital health tools.
4. Today’s Health Tech (and Marketing) Must Be Inclusive
A recurring theme across innovation-focused panels was the idea that technology only succeeds when it reflects genuine empathy for the people using it. “Inclusive tech” is about deeply understanding the differences between audiences and designing engagement accordingly.
Healthcare operates under very different constraints than most other industries. Compared to consumer tech platforms like Google, Uber, or Spotify, health tech must navigate higher stakes and far more regulatory complexity. CES conversations suggested that the next phase of progress will come from designing products—and by extension, marketing experiences—that better account for emotional context, differences in health literacy, and the lived realities of patients and caregivers.
For marketers, this means empathy has to be embedded into how audiences are segmented and how creative is developed. One-size-fits-all messaging doesn’t even come close.
5. Ecosystem Collaboration Is the Only Viable Path Forward
If CES 2026 had a unifying message, it might be that no one can do this alone anymore.
Across multiple panels, leaders from large tech companies and startups alike emphasized ecosystem-driven innovation. Big companies bring reach, infrastructure, and trust; smaller companies bring speed, creativity, and focus. Neither is sustainable in isolation, and the same is true for healthcare marketing.
Data security, privacy compliance, patient engagement, and AI integration are all challenges that cross organizational boundaries. Solving them requires “win-win” partnerships where value is co-created. As one panelist put it, the future of innovation is ecosystem innovation—and even the largest players are struggling to go it alone.
For healthcare marketers, collaboration is a core capability, essential for scaling responsibly and delivering meaningful impact in an increasingly interconnected healthcare landscape.
CES 2026 offered healthcare marketers clarity about the forces shaping how patients, providers, and technology will interact in the years ahead. The conversations around privacy, AI, ecosystem collaboration, and consumer-centered design point to a marketing landscape that is becoming more complex. For healthcare marketers, the task is to collaborate our way through that complexity. Together, we can create experiences that build trust, relevance, and meaningful engagement for patients and brands alike.
Curious for more predictions about the future of pharma and programmatic advertising? Click here.
