How AI Is Forcing CMOs to Redesign Marketing for 2026 And Beyond

With just a couple 2025 days left, it makes sense for people to start looking ahead to 2026.

Marketers by nature have to look beyond the most immediate calendar-changes, and for those looking ahead at the next few years, most see AI creating major organizational ripples.

A recent Gartner survey found that 65% of CMOs believe AI “will dramatically transform their role within the next two years,” with 4 out of 5 believing significant changes will need to be made to their company’s identity to “keep pace with the impact of AI on markets.”

“Success in this new era requires CMOs to set clear strategic direction, adapt to AI-driven customer journeys, and focus on creating authentic, differentiated value,” says Gartner’s Ewan McIntyre. “The CMO role is evolving from influencer to designer of business impact.”

As MediaPost’s Laurie Sullivan says, CMOs can’t “bolt” on AI technology if it doesn’t see magical gains overnight, so they must “adopt a zero-based approach … where marketing and advertising expenditures must be justified and approved for each new budget cycle, starting from a ‘zero base’ or clean slate.”

  (Source: Gartner’s 2025 CMO Spend Survey, via MediaPost)

“Gartner’s study suggests that organizations are not ready for ‘the promise’ AI is intended to provide: automation, hyper-personalization, and a higher percentage of return on investments,” Sullivan writes. “This may be because marketers are not yet seeing the business value they expected.”

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