Strategy

Marketing uncertainty will persist in 2026, but cutting spend can make your brand invisible when conditions rebound. The smarter approach is to stay visible without being reckless: protect brand investment, tighten measurement to prove what’s working, and build flexibility into your media plan so you can pivot fast. Pair that with empathetic, utility-driven messaging, a stronger focus on retention, and AI that accelerates execution without replacing human judgment. Teams that treat volatility as a competitive advantage—through discipline, scenario planning, and constant optimization—will outperform those that freeze or retreat.

CMOs are moving beyond using AI for efficiency and into a new phase where AI can drive innovation. The piece highlights agentic advertising, faster product and experience ideation through digital twins, multimodal brand intelligence, and emotion AI to improve creative impact. It closes with a call for CMOs to use AI to create new value, not just reduce costs.

AI is reshaping how CMOs measure marketing by expanding the portfolio beyond short-term performance metrics. This post outlines a three-tier measurement framework that balances efficiency and ROI with growth and loyalty signals, plus emotional resonance and brand resilience. It closes with practical steps to modernize measurement, align data capabilities, and connect brand impact to business outcomes.