The AI Readiness Gap: Why Most Marketers Want To Be An AI Leader, But Few Are Ready

2026 marketing budgets are only seeing the slightest uptick in terms of full company revenue —  to 7.8% from 7.7% last year, according to Gartner’s annual CMO Spend Survey — and an average of 15.3% of those marketing budgets are going toward AI initiatives as this “constrained fiscal environment is increasing pressure on CMOs to fund AI-enabled transformation through sharper prioritization and resource reallocation.”

“CMOs recognize AI’s potential as a force multiplier for growth, efficiency, and transformation, but most marketing organizations are not yet built to capture that value,” says Ewan McIntyre, Gartner’s VP Analyst and Chief of Research. “The risk is that CMOs invest in AI tools faster than they build the data foundations, processes, governance, and talent required to scale them.”

Gartner’s 2026 CMO Spend Survey (Photo Source: MediaPost)

70% of the CMOs surveyed said becoming an AI leader in 2026 is a “critical goal,” but only 30% have “mature or fully developed AI readiness capabilities.” However, as MediaPost notes, AI is helping teams address other challenges such as budgets and resources, an issue that fewer cited this year than in years’ past.

“CMOs continue to shift budget toward paid media and away from agencies and technology,” writes MediaPost’s Laurie Sullivan. “This year, CMOs said 31.4% will go toward paid media, 24.5% toward labor, 19.4% toward marketing technology, and 19.2% toward agencies.”

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