What CMOs should be doing about AI right now

According to a June 2026 McKinsey article, 96% of CMOs surveyed agreed with the statement, “I feel excited about the possibilities of AI at work.” Is that excitement translating to action?

That’s the question CMOs need to address right now. The survey also found, “only 28% of marketers from our survey view their companies as pursuing a fundamental rewiring of their marketing teams and workflows.” 

Two phenomena are at play.

• First, per McKinsey, 80% of CMOs surveyed agreed with the statement, “AI poses a threat to my job security.” This suggests that CMOs don’t want to change despite the insistence on being excited. If CMOs are unwilling to change as the industry undergoes rapid change, their fear is justified.
• The second is from Gartner: Its research found that “only 32% [of CMOs] say significant changes are needed to the CMO profile and skill set.” Even if CMOs wanted to lead their organizations in adopting AI, they lack the skills to do so. If that wasn’t bad enough, two-thirds don’t think the skill gap is a problem.

AI in marketing is similar to the toothpaste factory in the film Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. Charlie’s father works in the factory putting caps on toothpaste tubes, only to lose his job when factory management invests in machines to cap them. In the end, Charlie’s father is rehired by the factory to maintain the machines that cap the tubes.

Dear CMOs, AI is transforming marketing with or without you. We don’t hear much these days from those who chose not to adopt digital. Since we’re past the point where reluctance can stop the train, let’s look at what CMOs should be doing today.

Build your AI literacy

You have to work with these tools and develop a deep understanding of how to use them. Start with general resources, such as the Marketing AI Institute, which offers free courses and resources. This will give you a baseline to work from.

From there, you’ll need to get your hands on the keyboard. Play around with the tools your organization uses to develop intelligent questions to bring to your team. You’ll begin to understand the decisions they regularly have to make, why they matter, and why you want to be informed about them.

This is unpopular. According to a June 2026 Gartner article, “66% of marketers say learning new technologies takes significant time away from day-to-day work.” However, given that “Gartner predicts that by 2027, a lack of AI literacy will rank among the top three reasons CMOs are replaced at large enterprises,” it may be worth some day-to-day disruption.

Rethink your marketing organization

Demand from boards and CEOs for AI adoption is relatively new, so your organization likely isn’t designed around AI. That has to change. Start by considering two key questions:

How much of your budget should be allocated to AI?

In Gartner’s May 2026 press release, they reported, “CMOs are allocating an average of 15.3% of marketing budgets to AI initiatives.” For context, a June 2026 Boston Consulting Group publication found, “43% of CMOs report their AI investments in marketing exceeded $15 million this year (compared with 28% last year).” The appetite for AI investment is strong, but be prepared to quantify results before your finance team’s patience wears thin.

What do you do about a team you didn’t staff for AI? 

BCG found that CMOs “must reimagine the job to be done at every layer of the function — insights, strategy, creative, planning, production, activation, or measurement — in the context of what AI makes possible.” They say the majority of marketing organizations make targeted cuts, but leading CMOs are doing things differently.

• They’re creating new AI roles and teams. They’re pairing humans with AI across analytics, marketing science, and engineering to build and manage new workflows.
• Recognizing that AI doesn’t care about their org chart, these CMOs are building smaller, AI-assisted teams that work cross-functionally and break down old organizational silos.

Turn AI adoption into business results

An April 2026 McKinsey article found that a hybrid human-AI workforce would be transformational:

• 10% to 30% revenue growth from hyperpersonalized marketing.
• 10x to 15x faster creation and execution of marketing campaigns.
• Humans are freed to focus on human tasks with higher ROI from data-driven marketing, media, and creative performance.

As nearly all CMOs agreed, it’s an exciting time to be in marketing. AI is revolutionizing the way we do business, and that change brings anxiety. The time is now to enable yourself and rework your organization. You certainly don’t want to be Charlie’s dad, still capping toothpaste tubes at the factory.

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