New year predictions: Lucy Swanston, Nutshell Creative/The Strategic Mailing Partnership

What positives are you able to draw on from the experiences of 2025?
2025 has shown what can happen when an industry truly pulls together. Collaboration has been the golden thread running through everything. From the incredible progress on sustainability and our joint work with AdNet Zero to ensure print is properly represented, right through to the launch of PrintGreen, which felt like a defining moment for us all.

Beyond that, it’s been inspiring to see the unity across trade associations working together, the continued impact of the Printing Charity, seeing the progress of the Young People in Print initiative, and the way everyone is working tirelessly to help shape the future of mail and delivery through the Royal Mail USO reform discussions. We have our challenges, but it just feels like the industry has found its voice again. Confident, connected, and forward-looking.

What trend (business or technology) do you think has dominated 2025?
AI has dominated, no question. But the real story isn’t the tech itself, it’s the mindset shift it’s forced. The businesses thriving right now are the ones using AI as a creative or process driven accelerator, not a replacement. It’s made us all re-evaluate what “human creativity” really means, and that’s exciting.

What do you think will represent the single biggest opportunity for printers in 2026 and why?
The biggest opportunity lies in the seamless integration of print into customer communication systems. When print becomes part of the same ecosystem as CRM and marketing automation tools, think Salesforce, HubSpot, Adobe etc, it removes the friction that’s historically made it feel “too slow” or resource-heavy compared to digital channels.

This kind of integration will drive speed to market, reduce operational overheads for clients, and open the door to scalable growth in areas like programmatic mail and retail media. Most importantly, it bridges the skill gap by letting marketers plan, buy, measure, and execute print/mail in the same familiar environment they already use for digital campaigns.

With clients now facing an overwhelming array of channels, the brands and printers who make print easy, familiar, measurable, and seamlessly connected will win. The moment print plugs into the systems clients already live in, it stops being an afterthought and starts being a default.

What are your hopes for 2026?
That we stop apologising for being in print. It’s powerful, it’s sustainable, we can’t live without it and it connects in a way a screen never can. My hope is that 2026 becomes the year print proudly reclaims its seat at the marketing table without question (globally!).

What piece of advice do you wish you had been given in December 2024 to prepare you for the year you’ve just had?
Don’t just watch what AI is doing, get your hands dirty early. Test it, play with it, make mistakes. You’ll learn faster and be ready for the opportunities it opens up.

What was your word or phrase of the year in 2025?
‘Be curious not cautious’.

AI (artificial intelligence): friend or foe?
Friend, but only if you keep your sense of humour and humanity intact. The danger isn’t AI replacing people; it’s people forgetting what makes them irreplaceable.

What, if anything, will you do differently in 2026?
Leave more breathing space for thinking, not just doing. Creativity needs oxygen, not back-to-back meetings.

What’s your worst Christmas cracker joke?
Oh god, soooo cheesy but if I have to (and not going to lie, I ChatGPT’d this one!): What do you get if you eat Christmas decorations? Tinsellitis.

Yorkshire puddings with Christmas dinner, yes or no?
Always yes. They should have their own postcode on the plate.

Are you making any New Year’s resolutions? If so, what?
To say no to more of the noise and yes to the things that really matter; good people, bold ideas, and a bit more adventure.