By Emily Keogh, Founder of Palm
For much of the past decade, wellness has been treated as an add-on. Sometimes even an afterthought. A gym membership. A green juice. A yoga class squeezed into an already overloaded life.
2026 is pointing to the moment when that era is over.
Today, wellness is no longer a lifestyle choice or a consumer trend, it’s becoming core infrastructure for how we live, work, travel and perform. And for business leaders, that shift has profound implications.
At Palm, my communications agency working across hospitality, travel, food and drink, I’ve watched wellness evolve from the sidelines into the centre of commercial strategy. Sixteen years ago, it sat neatly in the “nice to have” column. Now, it sits across sectors and touches everything from real estate and design to talent retention, brand trust and long-term growth.
A recent Palm panel hosted at The Ned as part of our ‘Future-Thinking 2026 series’ brought together voices who aren’t commenting on wellness from the outside, but actively building it. These were: former Premier League footballer and The Turmeric Co. founder Thomas Hal Robson-Kanu, cultural futurist Sophie Maxwell Brown of independent, multidisciplinary design studio WeWantMore and performance health specialist Harry Jameson, CEO of Pillar Wellbeing.
What emerged was a surprisingly clear and aligned picture of where wellness is heading.
I’m sharing key highlights here on what leaders need to understand about wellness now.
Beyond simple optimisation
One of the biggest misconceptions about wellness is that it’s about optimisation at all costs. More data. More tracking. More biohacks.
In reality, we’re seeing a cultural correction.
“Wellness is not the absence of illness,” Jameson explained during the discussion. “The ultimate measure of wellbeing is happiness.” That sounds simple, but it’s quietly radical in a world obsessed with metrics.
For years, performance culture taught us to override our bodies. Now, people want systems – products, spaces, rituals – that support them instead. The next phase of wellness isn’t about pushing harder; it’s about sustaining human potential over time.
This matters for business because burnout, anxiety and disengagement are no longer personal problems, they are systemic risks.
The rise of personalised, proof-based wellness
Consumers are more informed than ever, and they’re no longer willing to take claims at face value.
As Robson-Kanu shared, one of the defining shifts in wellness is accountability. “People can now measure whether something actually works,” he said. Wearables, blood panels and diagnostics mean brands are being held to a higher standard.
But there’s a balance to strike.
Data should inform wellness and definitely not replace intuition and self-awareness. As Jameson cautioned, “We don’t want to lose our internal barometer just because a device tells us how we should feel.”
The opportunity for brands lies in combining credible science with human understanding. This means translating complex data into accessible, meaningful experiences that meet people where they are.
This is where wellness stops being elitist and starts becoming inclusive.
Desire drives behaviour change
One of the most important insights from the panel was that wellness only works if people want to engage with it.
For too long, wellbeing has been framed around restriction, discipline and deficiency. Cultural strategist Sophie Maxwell Brown highlighted how that narrative is shifting: “Wellness has moved away from clinical expressions of what you’re not having, towards experiences that feel joyful, indulgent and desirable.”
In other words, people don’t want to be lectured into better health — they want rituals that feel good and fit into real life.
This has major implications for product development, hospitality and workplace design. The brands winning in wellness aren’t asking people to overhaul their lives; they’re integrating seamlessly into existing routines.
Wellness moves from departments to design
Perhaps the most significant shift for business leaders is this: wellness is no longer a department. It’s a design principle.
In hospitality, property and workspaces, we’re moving beyond spas and gyms towards environments that actively support nervous systems, sleep, recovery and focus.
Jameson described this as the next frontier: buildings and spaces designed not just to avoid making us sick, but to actively make us well – through light, air quality, acoustics, materials and layout.
This is already happening at the luxury end of the market, but as with all innovation, it will trickle down. “Wellness is the new luxury,” Jameson said. “There’s nothing more premium than feeling well.”
For leaders, the question isn’t whether to invest in this, it’s how quickly they adapt.
What business leaders should take from this now
Three things are clear:
First, wellness is no longer a consumer trend; it’s a societal shift driven by stress, technology overload and changing values. Ignoring it is a strategic risk.
Second, credibility matters. The era of vague claims is over. Proof, transparency and education build trust. And trust drives long-term brand value.
Third, wellness must be woven into experience, culture and design, never bolted on as an afterthought.
Looking ahead to 2026 and beyond, the most successful businesses won’t be the ones shouting loudest about wellness. They’ll be the ones quietly building systems that allow people – whether that’s customers, teams or communities – to function better, for longer.
