CMOs Shift From Buying to Building AI Capabilities
MarTech reports that AI is pushing CMOs to decide which company-specific workflows to own internally rather than purchase from vendors.
CMOs face decisions on which marketing capabilities to develop internally as AI vendors standardize common functions across organizations, according to MarTech.
Technology and Product Strategy Converge
AI is collapsing the distinction between technology strategy and product strategy. Technology strategy previously centered on evaluating software, negotiating contracts, and integrating platforms. CMOs now address product decisions alongside purchasing decisions. Major vendors present similar AI features, including Salesforce agents for drafting briefs, managing leads, and automating campaigns, Adobe AI coworkers in customer experience workflows, and Oracle role-based agents in enterprise applications.
Horizontal Capabilities Lose Strategic Value
Audience segmentation, campaign summarization, content drafting, workflow orchestration, lead routing, and data management are becoming standard platform capabilities. Vendors spread development costs across thousands of customers, reducing the value of rebuilding these functions internally.
The question of selecting the best platform held more relevance a year ago than it does now.
Differentiation Resides in Exceptions
Competitive distinctions appear in regulatory requirements unique to an industry, approval processes shaped by organizational history, and customer experiences refined over years. Examples include custom content validation against internal SEO standards, accessibility adjustments in approved templates, and manual reviews of audience overlap across multiple teams.
Purpose-Built Agents Enter Operating Models
Teams develop purpose-built agents and workflows for repetitive tasks that existing platforms do not address. These solutions often start as localized efforts that demonstrate value before expanding to influence decisions across multiple business areas. The resulting question is whether the capability belongs in the organization's core operating model, according to MarTech.
Most enterprises already maintain governance processes for such capabilities.
