CMOs need business judgment to turn AI into strategy

More AI output leaves strategic leadership unproven

A chief marketing officer (CMO) can produce more content with AI and still leave the CEO’s most important question unanswered: what should the business do differently? Automating content production and routine marketing work can improve execution, but its strategic value depends on the choices it supports. Choices about customers, market position and investment require the CMO to connect marketing insight with business objectives.

The difficulty of meeting those expectations appears in Gartner’s research. Gartner, whose business benefits when executives seek its research and advice, reports that the average CMO has an 11% probability of exceeding CEO and CFO expectations. This finding measures marketing leadership against the expectations of those responsible for company direction and financial performance. AI enters a role already under pressure to prove its contribution.

AI adds to that pressure because many executives approach it chiefly as a productivity tool. Content and operational automation offer practical benefits, but a CMO focused on operations still has to demonstrate influence over innovation and market position. Faster delivery shows more efficient execution. Strategic standing depends on whether the CMO helps determine what the business should pursue.

Market-shaping CMOs connect customer understanding to business choices

Gartner calls a stronger-performing leadership category the market-shaping CMO: a leader who helps influence customer preferences and the company’s response to them. Gartner identifies four behaviors in this role: shaping what customers prefer, representing customer requirements internally, developing offerings around unmet demand and guiding the organization through disruption. These responsibilities bring marketing leadership into decisions about what the company offers and how it competes.

Participating in those decisions changes how a CMO uses customer understanding. An emerging requirement may justify changing an offering or investing in a need that existing options leave unmet. To secure that response, the CMO must show colleagues responsible for product development, resources and business priorities why the requirement matters. Customer insight then becomes a basis for business change.

Gartner reports that market-shaping CMOs achieve stronger revenue results than their peers and argues that deeper use of AI in business decisions is increasing their advantage. In Gartner’s account, this advantage comes from connecting analysis with action: recognizing a change in demand gives the organization an opportunity to respond. As AI takes a larger role in business decisions, Gartner sees a growing risk that CMOs outside this category will lose strategic influence.

The prospect of changing responsibilities also appears in another Gartner finding: 65% of CMOs expect their roles to change dramatically within two years. Separately, Gartner reports that 15% of CEOs regard their CMO as strongly AI-savvy. One measure captures CMOs’ expectations about their roles; the other captures CEOs’ perceptions of their capability. So earning executive confidence includes demonstrating useful judgment about AI.

AI-assisted analysis needs a business question and a decision

To demonstrate that judgment, a CMO needs to start with a question that matters to the business. It might concern emerging customer requirements, an opportunity created by market disruption, a possible change to the value proposition, the reason customers should choose the company’s offer, or the allocation of innovation resources. Each question points toward a choice. Defining that choice gives AI-assisted analysis a purpose and a basis for judging its usefulness.

With a purpose established, AI can process customer and market information to find relevant patterns. Combining customer signals and examining behavioral change can help leaders develop better insight faster. The resulting interpretation might suggest a shift in what customers need, how they behave or what they value. The CMO can then assess that shift against the original business question.

Competitive analysis and rapid experimentation can help the CMO examine possible responses. Assessing competitive threats shows how the company’s position may be changing, while faster experiments can test potential responses. Together, they help leaders decide which option deserves further attention and resources. What the business needs to learn determines which analysis or experiment will be useful.

Before committing resources, however, the CMO must examine what the analysis means. A generic AI response can sound relevant while leaving the central question unresolved, so the leader needs to judge whether a detected pattern matters to the decision and whether a proposed response fits the company’s circumstances. Gartner assigns this interpretation and the organizational response to leaders. The same observation could justify further investigation, a revised proposition or a different investment priority.

These possible responses give executives a practical way to assess the CMO’s contribution. They can ask what customer change AI helped the team understand, how the CMO interpreted it and what that interpretation changed about positioning or investment. Productivity remains part of the assessment, alongside the reasoning behind the recommendation. The CMO must explain why the proposed use of resources gives the business a sound basis to act.

Business-aligned brand strategy gives decisions direction

Explaining a resource decision requires criteria for choosing among opportunities, and brand strategy provides them by connecting customer understanding with the company’s intended position and business objectives. It sets out what the company should mean to customers and how its offerings should support that meaning. Leaders can then judge whether an insight supports the current direction, calls for it to evolve or deserves a different level of investment.

The need for those judgments is growing as markets change. Gartner reports that 82% of business leaders believe their company’s identity needs to evolve in response to AI-driven market change. Company identity is how the business defines and presents its value to the market. For the CMO, the task is to connect changing customer expectations with a credible direction for the company.

That direction also matters as AI increases the volume of content companies can produce. When more organizations can publish more material, publishing activity becomes a weaker basis for standing apart. A clear brand strategy helps the CMO decide what the company should consistently communicate and how its offerings will make that position credible. Efficient production can then support choices about the company’s value to customers.

In making those choices, AI and brand strategy play different roles. AI can speed up customer and market analysis by detecting patterns and helping leaders assess change; brand strategy supplies the business context for a response. Newly identified demand may fit the company’s intended position, suggest that the position should evolve or warrant a different allocation of attention. The decision depends on both the customer opportunity and the direction the business intends to take.

Gartner’s growth finding shows why this connection matters across the organization. It reports that organizations are “Twice as likely” to exceed growth goals when they have a high-performing brand strategy aligned with overall business objectives and supported by executive leadership. The finding ties that likelihood to a combination of strategy quality, business alignment and executive backing. Each condition therefore matters when leaders consider how an AI-generated insight should affect investment.

Business alignment makes a proposed investment relevant to company priorities. If AI identifies a possible customer opportunity, leaders need to assess how pursuing it would contribute to business objectives and affect the company’s position. Brand strategy gives them a shared basis for that discussion. The opportunity’s priority then depends on its value to customers and its contribution to the business’s intended direction.

Acting on that priority requires executive support because the response may span several functions. Developing an offering around unmet demand or changing the company’s value proposition requires agreement about what the business will commit to doing. The CMO can interpret the evidence, recommend a direction and explain the resources it requires. Executives must then agree on the commitment and enable the relevant teams to carry it out.

Key takeaways for decision-makers

• Measure strategic contribution: CEOs assessing AI’s value in marketing need to examine how the CMO’s recommendations affect customers, positioning and investment. Productivity gains demonstrate execution efficiency; strategic influence depends on the business choices those gains support.
• Turn customer insight into business action: CMOs strengthen their role by identifying unmet demand, shaping offerings and guiding responses to disruption. Gartner reports stronger revenue results among CMOs who take this market-shaping role.
• Start AI analysis with a decision: CMOs need to define the business choice before commissioning analysis or experiments. Evaluate findings against that choice, then explain what the evidence supports and why the proposed response merits resources.
• Align brand strategy and executive commitment: Brand strategy gives CMOs a basis for judging whether emerging demand fits the company’s direction or calls for change. Executive backing enables the product, resource and investment commitments needed to act.