11 stories tagged #marketing.
Marketing leadership in 2026 is being asked to do two contradictory things: cut budgets and grow pipeline. The stories on this page cover the operating responses — AI-augmented teams, attribution model rebuilds, and the shift from MQL volume targets to revenue-influenced metrics.
A June 2026 McKinsey survey found that 96% of CMOs agreed they feel excited about the possibilities of AI at work, while only 28% viewed their companies as pursuing a fundamental rewiring of marketing teams and workflows, according to [MarTech](https://martech.org/what-cmos-should-be-doing-about-ai-right-now/).
The same McKinsey survey showed 80% of CMOs agreed that AI poses a threat to their job security.
Demandbase will present the webinar “AI in ABM: What Actually Works (And What’s Just Hype)” on Wednesday, July 15, 2026, at 12:00 p.m. as part of B2BMX Summer Camp 2026 according to [Demand Gen Report](https://www.demandgenreport.com/blog/demandbase-to-cut-through-ai-hype-in-b2bmx-summer-camp-abm-session/53225/).
The session positions AI in ABM as a practical discipline.
Nearly half of B2B SaaS companies have cut or reduced marketing roles because of AI. Most reductions occurred through quietly stopping backfills and allowing attrition to shrink teams, according to MarTech.
Wynter’s report “How B2B Marketing Actually Uses AI” surveyed 100 directors, VPs, and heads of marketing at mid-market and enterprise SaaS companies.
AI is now the main driver of increased martech budgets, according to MarTech. Research on martech performance finds that only 49% of martech tools are actively used. Only 15% of organizations qualify as high performers who meet strategic goals and demonstrate a positive ROI.
This gap produces workslop, defined as low-quality generic output that results when teams face pressure to use AI for higher volume without time for quality control.
Leadership often fails to define how to use AI and what...
Marketing leaders face growing pressures as AI transforms how brands gain visibility, with only 49% of Fortune 500 top marketers holding the CMO title, down from 55% a year ago, according to a Forrester report cited in a MarTech article. Over one in five Fortune 500 companies have changed their entire marketing leadership in the past 12 months, and the average CMO tenure has fallen to 3.9 years, the shortest in the C-suite.
At B2BMX 2026, LinkedIn’s Ty Heath, Global Director of Thought Leadership GTM Strategy and co-founder of The B2B Institute, focused on why B2B deals stall due to buying groups lacking collective confidence rather than losing to competitors, emphasizing that marketers must solve buyability by reducing hidden friction.
At the May 2026 MarTech Conference, a panel moderated by A. Lee Judge, co-founder and CMO of Content Monsta, featured marketing leaders Dale Bertrand, Melanie Deziel, Lexie Haggerty from Braze, and Jordache Johnson discussing how to preserve authentic storytelling in an AI-driven era, according to [MarTech](https://martech.org/reclaiming-the-power-of-the-story-fueled-by-data-and-ai/).
AI is already transforming marketing by altering discovery, buying decisions, and market competition, yet many marketing leaders are primarily evaluated on campaign execution rather than guiding enterprise transformation, according to MarTech. Gartner research indicates that 82% of business leaders believe their company’s brand and culture must evolve to keep pace with AI, but only 15% of CEOs see their marketing leader as strongly AI savvy, creating a gap that threatens marketing’s strategic...
In the rush to implement artificial intelligence for marketing and operations, organizations often neglect the importance of clean, accessible, and connected data, according to Demand Gen Report. The article highlights that AI systems may launch on time with sophisticated models and impressive dashboards, but marketing teams frequently abandon them within weeks due to untrustworthy recommendations stemming from weak data foundations.
Iterable, an AI customer engagement platform, announced the launch of Nova Agent, which uses real-time AI to adapt campaigns and ensure precise personalization at scale, according to [Demand Gen Report](https://www.demandgenreport.com/industry-news/news-brief/iterable-launches-ai-agent-to-scale-personalization/52538/).
At the Spring 2026 MarTech conference, participants in the MarTech Vibe Marketing Lab engaged in hands-on collaboration to create marketing tools for Harlem Grown, a nonprofit dedicated to urban farming and youth mentorship, where one team developed a story engine to transform a single impact story into various content pieces while maintaining consistent voice.