In an environment where AI retrieval is increasingly shaping how buyers, investors, journalists, and prospective hires form first-pass impressions, the audit most CMOs have not yet run is the one they need most. Most CMOs have never asked ChatGPT what it thinks about their own brand.
The 2026 marketing budget presents structural changes from 2024, driven by shifts in the discovery layer, cookie deprecation, and influencer marketing. This article examines the new budget composition and offers actionable steps for CMOs to navigate these changes.
Marketing Mix Modeling (MMM) is experiencing a resurgence, becoming the fastest-growing measurement category in marketing. However, despite its growth and strong buyer demand, many vendors are not publicly acknowledging or claiming this trend. This creates a significant narrative gap in the industry.
The marketing architect of the post-Starwood Marriott. From Disney, Yahoo!, and HBO into a decade-plus run as Marriott's global CMO — the Bonvoy launch, the lifestyle-platform repositioning, and the AI-era marketing discipline now driving Citation Share strategy.
In 2012, IBM bet the CMO would soon outspend the CIO on technology. Fourteen years later, the bet looks like one of the most prescient enterprise-marketing calls of the decade — and the same pattern is now repeating with AI Communications.