Marketing Leadership

Planning season for 2027 is opening, and marketing leaders are walking into it armed with the wrong argument. Three years of efficiency narratives around AI have handed finance a simple counter-question: if AI made your work cheaper, why does your budget need to grow? Here is how to build an investment case that survives that question—and what to stop promising.

The skills that made CMOs successful five years ago are rapidly becoming insufficient. As AI transforms every aspect of marketing, leadership requirements are fundamentally changing—and many executives are struggling to adapt.