Capgemini Research Institute’s latest CMO Playbook, “From Complexity to Clarity: How CMOs Can Reclaim Marketing to Build Competitive Edge,” reveals that the marketing function is facing a defining moment. CMOs are under greater pressure than ever, yet their influence, control over budgets, and ownership of core technologies continue to decline. The report points out that while expectations grow, CMOs must navigate constrained spending, unclear mandates, and the rapid introduction of AI across the marketing value chain—much of which is still managed outside their function.
Nearly seven in ten CMOs say the demands placed on their role have increased sharply. However, marketing budgets have dropped over the past two years to an average of 5% of company revenue. At the same time, CMO participation in major business decisions has fallen from 70% to 55%.
Even with widespread adoption of generative AI for tasks like content creation, segmentation, and digital campaigns, automation remains shallow. Only 15% of marketing teams report that repetitive or low-value activities have been meaningfully automated, leaving teams bogged down in manual work and with limited capacity to focus on brand building, creativity, and customer relationships.
The report also highlights a persistent gap in martech and data strategies. Only 18% of marketers strongly believe they are effectively using real-time data to personalize customer experiences, showing that organizations still struggle to combine technology capabilities with marketing insight.
Gagandeep Gadri, Managing Director at frog, part of Capgemini, notes “CMOs are now expected to drive revenue, deliver customer experience, and understand data and AI—essentially marketing to both people and intelligent systems. But many lack control over budgets, resources, and direction. AI has immense promise, but unless strategy, technology, and investment are aligned, the value remains out of reach. This is the time for CMOs to redefine their purpose and reassert marketing’s role as a growth engine.”
Large organizations have significantly increased their use of generative AI in marketing, with adoption rising and martech investments for AI climbing from 64% in 2023 to 79% in 2025. Still, real results are modest. Only 7% of marketers strongly agree that AI has improved marketing performance, and many initiatives struggle to move beyond pilot stages.
Agentic AI—the next phase of autonomous or multi-agent systems—generates strong interest, but few companies are actively experimenting with it. Concerns about data privacy, security risks, skills shortages, and trust in machine-made decisions are slowing progress.
According to the report, integrating AI across the full marketing lifecycle and redesigning operating models will be crucial for CMOs to regain ownership of their function. The majority of marketing leaders (68%) believe their teams must rapidly acquire new capabilities in AI, ethics, and business strategy to stay competitive.
The research also emphasizes the need for closer alignment between CMOs and CIOs. Although 61% of marketers consider sales and go-to-market integration a top priority, fewer than one in four have shared KPIs with their sales counterparts—leading to siloed decisions and uneven customer experiences. Stronger partnerships between marketing and technology leadership can help ensure that data systems, strategy, and AI tools work in concert to deliver measurable outcomes.
To reclaim their mandate, CMOs will need to champion human-centered, AI-enabled marketing—breaking internal silos, investing in future-ready skills, and fostering effective collaboration between people and intelligent systems.
The findings are based on a global survey conducted in July 2025 with 1,500 senior executives responsible for marketing across 15 countries, each representing companies with annual revenues above USD 1 billion. In addition, around 30 CMOs and marketing leaders were interviewed to provide deeper insights. “Strongly agree” refers to respondents who selected the highest score on a five-point scale.
Capgemini is a global partner for AI-enabled business and technology transformation, combining nearly six decades of industry experience with deep expertise in strategy, engineering, design, technology, and operations. With 420,000 team members across more than 50 countries, the Group reported global revenues of €22.1 billion in 2024. The Capgemini Research Institute serves as the organization’s dedicated think tank, focusing on the impact of digital technologies on large enterprises. With research centers in India, Singapore, the UK, and the US, the Institute has been ranked the world’s leading research unit in its category by independent analysts for six consecutive
