Mind the Marketing Gap: Most CMOs Say AI Is Transforming Marketing, But Few Are Using It to Transform Their Own Function

Mind the Marketing Gap: Most CMOs Say AI Is Transforming Marketing, But Few Are Using It to Transform Their Own Function

PR Newswire

BOSTON, June 15, 2026

Survey Reveals That 96% of Chief Marketing Officers Say AI Is Driving an End-to-End Transformation of Their FunctionBut 42% Are Only Using GenAI to Assist Humans with Individual TasksAI Investments in Marketing Exceeded $15 Million This Year for 43% of Respondent CompaniesNine Out of Ten Marketing Officers Say That GenAI Is Reshaping How Consumers Discover Brands BOSTON, June 15, 2026 /PRNewswire/ -- The vast majority of chief marketing officers (CMOs) feel that AI is driving an end-to-end transformation of their function. But only 8% are running campaigns in which multiple AI agents operate autonomously, and just under a third have transformed significant parts of their function with agents. In contrast, 42% use GenAI only as an assistant for individual tasks in a handful of workflows. This gap in AI transformation is all the more significant in light of mounting pressure to deliver on AI in the marketing function.

Roughly half of CMOs say that the marketing organization now leads AI investment decisions within their function. This contrasts sharply with the broader enterprise, where 72% of CEOs describe themselves as the primary decision maker on AI. However, 94% of CMOs also feel that CEO's expectations of marketing have increased significantly over the past two years.The latest report from Boston Consulting Group (BCG), How CMOs are Moving Agentic Marketing from Illusion to Reality, combines a global survey of 300 CMOs across business-to-consumer and business-to-business sectors with structured interviews with 50 CMOs to chart the AI transformation gap and what it takes to bridge it."Ninety percent of the CMOs in our survey agreed that GenAI is already reshaping how consumers discover and evaluate brands. But most marketing organizations are not yet built to compete in that environment," said Mark Abraham, a BCG managing director and senior partner and coauthor of the report. "Investment must now move beyond individual AI tools, and towards fully connected agentic operating systems built on strong data foundations, brand intelligence layers, multi-agent orchestration, and the right talent. If established brands don't build this first, new agentic-native attacker brands will do so."AI Spending Is Rising, But So Are the StakesAlmost half (43%) of the CMOs surveyed report that their company's AI investments in marketing exceeded $15 million this year, up from 28% last year. Of the highest investing CMOs, 41% are dramatically increasing investment in end-to-end workflow orchestration. The number one investment area is now martech and data, up 11 to 12 percentage points since 2025.The benefits are tangible and can include greater cost efficiency, major gains in growth and speed, and strong improvement in campaign cycle times. Close to a third (31%) of business-to-consumer CMOs and 20% of business-to-business CMOs report that their agentic marketing transformation is already having significant, measurable revenue impact.The Talent Gap Is the Hardest Problem to SolveUpskilling is the critical enabler of the modern agentic marketing organization. Several CMOs describe this factor as talent that they cannot recruit but must create themselves. Around 80% of CMOs reported making significant investments in AI-specific upskilling programs, and a similar proportion added responsible AI and ethics training, up 10 percentage points from 2025. In addition to upskilling, leading CMOs are creating critical new roles and teams, redesigning organizational structures, and rewiring processes to radically reshape the marketing function for the AI era."The introduction of end-to-end agentic workflows is forcing a fundamental reset of the marketing operating model," said Lauren Wiener, a BCG managing director and senior partner, and global head of the marketing and customer growth practice. "Marketing organizations are being redesigned around AI, and CMOs have a rare opportunity to drive enterprise value by moving early and optimizing across their own organization as well as their partner ecosystem."Download the report here:https://www.bcg.com/publications/2026/making-the-agentic-marketing-transformation-a-realityMedia Contact:Eric Gregoiregregoire.eric@bcg.comAbout Boston Consulting GroupBoston Consulting Group bridges the gap between ambition and outcomes for the world's leading companies and organizations. We are built for this era of unprecedented change — bringing strategic clarity rooted in over 60 years of deep domain knowledge, combined with applied AI shaped by our practitioners. BCG works shoulder-to-shoulder with CEOs across industries and geographies to deliver transformative impact at scale: stronger returns, transferred capabilities, and change that sticks. For more information, visit bcg.com.