{"id":10610,"date":"2025-12-03T18:47:56","date_gmt":"2025-12-04T00:47:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/attentionmedia.io\/?p=10610"},"modified":"2025-12-03T18:47:56","modified_gmt":"2025-12-04T00:47:56","slug":"5-ways-ai-changed-marketing-strategy-in-just-one-year","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/attentionmedia.io\/?p=10610","title":{"rendered":"5 ways AI changed marketing strategy in just one year"},"content":{"rendered":"
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What a difference a year makes, especially when it comes to artificial intelligence. Scott Brinker and Frans Riemersma released their \u201cMartech for 2026<\/a>\u201d report yesterday and the differences between it and the 2025 edition say a lot about how AI and marketing have evolved over the last 12 months.<\/p>\n

Here are five key changes in how AI agents are being used and understood across the marketing landscape.<\/p>\n

1. From efficiency to growth<\/h3>\n

Last year, most marketers focused on squeezing more out of their teams and tools. That made sense \u2014 AI was new, and the easiest wins were around productivity. Tools for content ideation (used by 69%) and copywriting (62%) were among the most common applications.<\/p>\n

Dig deeper: Three actions you must take to thrive in the agentic era of marketing<\/a><\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Today, the bar is higher. Efficiency is taken for granted. Now the focus is on growth \u2014 using AI to drive innovation, unlock new revenue streams and create differentiation. Instead of \u201cdo more with less,\u201d it\u2019s \u201cdo more with more.\u201d As the 2026 report puts it: \u201cMore is not better \u2014 better is better.\u201d<\/em> In other words, it\u2019s not about how much AI you use \u2014 it\u2019s about what you do with it.<\/p>\n

2. From competing platforms to AI-empowered buyers<\/h3>\n

In last year\u2019s report, the main disruption was inside marketing: established vendors vs. upstart AI-native tools, or the challenge of managing ever-expanding martech stacks.<\/p>\n

This year, the main disruption is outside of marketing\u2019s control: The consumer use of tools like ChatGPT, Claude and Gemini for research and buying decisions is turning everything upside down. Half of all consumers already use AI-powered search, putting as much as 50% of traditional search traffic at risk. That\u2019s an enormous power shift.<\/p>\n

To respond, marketers are beginning to embrace optimizing content for AI engines. Whether you call it AEO for AI engine optimization or GEO for generative engine, it means applying relevant schema types \u2014 such as Product, FAQPage, Review and Article \u2014 that make details like features, use cases and customer ratings easier for AI to extract and display in results. It\u2019s still early, but the trend is clear: SEO alone won\u2019t get you seen anymore.<\/p>\n

3. From replacement to augmentation<\/strong><\/h3>\n

There was a lot of noise last year about AI replacing martech as we know it. Would AI agents \u201ceat SaaS\u201d? Would traditional platforms become obsolete?<\/p>\n

Turns out, not so much. The data from 2026 shows that most companies are using AI to augment what they already have \u2014 not to rip and replace it. In fact, 85.4% of respondents said they\u2019re using AI to enhance existing tools, and just 30.1% reported replacing any major parts of their stack.<\/p>\n

Dig deeper: How MOps and CreativeOps can align to unlock operational excellence<\/a><\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

What\u2019s emerging is a hybrid model: traditional, rules-based software paired with AI that can reason, generate and adapt. That blend of deterministic and probabilistic systems is fast becoming the new standard.<\/p>\n

4. From data collection <\/strong>to data quality<\/strong><\/h3>\n

In 2025, the most significant data challenge was getting access to it. Marketers were all about setting up cloud data warehouses, centralizing information and building a universal data layer.<\/p>\n

Now, it\u2019s about ensuring that the data is actually useful. The biggest hurdle in 2026? Poor data quality. More than half of marketers reported struggling with missing, outdated, or inconsistent data. And when AI agents rely on that data to deliver insights, quality matters more than ever.<\/p>\n

To solve this, marketers are leaning into Context Engineering to ensure AI gets the right inputs at the right time. That includes connecting CRM and CDP data, tapping into DAMs and CMSs and enriching insights with both internal and external signals. Without reliable context, even the smartest AI can get things wrong.<\/p>\n

5. From keeping systems running to driving business impact<\/h3>\n

AI may be changing the role of marketing operations faster than anything else. MOps now has strategic responsibilities in addition to managing tools and ensuring campaigns run on time.<\/p>\n

In 2026, MOps teams are becoming \u201cbusiness value engineers.\u201d That means translating AI\u2019s potential into outcomes that matter \u2014 like top-line growth, customer expansion and strategic insights. It\u2019s a mix of technical know-how, cross-functional collaboration and the ability to turn data into direction.<\/p>\n

The bottom line<\/h2>\n

In just a year, marketing has gone from \u201chow do we use this?\u201d to \u201chow do we lead with this?\u201d And expectations for marketing teams are rising accordingly.<\/p>\n

AI is now a new layer in how marketing operates. That means rethinking how stacks are built, customer journeys shaped and teams create value. Like it or not, marketing is becoming the leading change agent for organizations. The rewards and challenges are enormous.<\/p>\n

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The post 5 ways AI changed marketing strategy in just one year<\/a> appeared first on MarTech<\/a>.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

What a difference a year makes, especially when it comes to artificial intelligence. Scott Brinker and Frans Riemersma released their \u201cMartech for 2026\u201d report yesterday and the differences between it and the 2025 edition say a lot about how AI and marketing have evolved over the last 12 months. Here are five key changes in … <\/p>\n

Read more “5 ways AI changed marketing strategy in just one year”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10610","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"featured_media_urls":{"thumbnail":["https:\/\/martech.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/data-flowing-AI-information-800x448.png",0,0,false],"medium":["https:\/\/martech.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/data-flowing-AI-information-800x448.png",0,0,false],"medium_large":["https:\/\/martech.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/data-flowing-AI-information-800x448.png",0,0,false],"large":["https:\/\/martech.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/data-flowing-AI-information-800x448.png",0,0,false],"1536x1536":["https:\/\/martech.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/data-flowing-AI-information-800x448.png",0,0,false],"2048x2048":["https:\/\/martech.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/data-flowing-AI-information-800x448.png",0,0,false],"inspiro-featured-image":["https:\/\/martech.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/data-flowing-AI-information-800x448.png",0,0,false],"inspiro-loop":["https:\/\/martech.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/data-flowing-AI-information-800x448.png",0,0,false],"inspiro-loop@2x":["https:\/\/martech.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/data-flowing-AI-information-800x448.png",0,0,false],"portfolio_item-thumbnail":["https:\/\/martech.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/data-flowing-AI-information-800x448.png",0,0,false],"portfolio_item-thumbnail@2x":["https:\/\/martech.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/data-flowing-AI-information-800x448.png",0,0,false],"portfolio_item-masonry":["https:\/\/martech.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/data-flowing-AI-information-800x448.png",0,0,false],"portfolio_item-masonry@2x":["https:\/\/martech.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/data-flowing-AI-information-800x448.png",0,0,false],"portfolio_item-thumbnail_cinema":["https:\/\/martech.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/data-flowing-AI-information-800x448.png",0,0,false],"portfolio_item-thumbnail_portrait":["https:\/\/martech.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/data-flowing-AI-information-800x448.png",0,0,false],"portfolio_item-thumbnail_portrait@2x":["https:\/\/martech.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/data-flowing-AI-information-800x448.png",0,0,false],"portfolio_item-thumbnail_square":["https:\/\/martech.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/data-flowing-AI-information-800x448.png",0,0,false]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/attentionmedia.io\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10610","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/attentionmedia.io\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/attentionmedia.io\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/attentionmedia.io\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/attentionmedia.io\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=10610"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/attentionmedia.io\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10610\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/attentionmedia.io\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=10610"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/attentionmedia.io\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=10610"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/attentionmedia.io\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=10610"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}