What Gartner’s 2026 predictions mean for CMOs

Every January, Gartner’s predictions arrive, full of energy, acronyms, and bold claims about how marketing will change “within two years.” Experience tells us to take those timescales with a pinch of salt. For most brands, add two or three years before their ideas reach commercial reality, and longer still before they’re part of businesses day-to-day operations.

However, this year’s round of forecasts contains some vital signals CMOs can’t afford to ignore, particularly around AI’s expanding role, the redefinition of customer journeys, and the push toward trust and transparency in an automated world.

From channels to journeys — human and machine

Gartner predicts that “journeys” not “channels” will become the organising principle of marketing. That rings true. 

The next challenge is building customer and machine journeys. Machine customers (think AI assistants, bots, and digital agents – Agentic AI) are already researching, comparing and even purchasing on behalf of humans. They navigate very differently. They prioritise structured, factual and machine-readable information.

That makes AEO (Answer Engine Optimisation) the new SEO frontier. Marketers will need to ensure their content is geared around specificity: accurate specs, clear product information and evidence of credibility. It’s a shift from storytelling to useful information engineering. The brands that succeed will be those who understand not just their customers’ needs, but their customers’ AI agent’s needs. 

It is our belief that video will play a crucial part in AEO content alongside clearly structured, specific content; both “hero” video to underpin a brand’s ethos and purpose, and short form product videos for top of funnel research.

The trust factor: label your AI

We’ve reached the point where audiences expect clarity about what’s human-made and what’s machine-assisted. Gartner’s focus on AI trust is timely. Ethical marketing now includes labelling AI-generated content.
Done well, transparency enhances trust rather than undermines it. Consumers increasingly value understanding how content is created, and brands that hide behind generative tools risk reputational damage. More than ever, honesty is a differentiator.

Data and analytics: fuel for insight-driven AI

The Internet of Things will continue to flood marketing systems with data, but value doesn’t come from volume — it comes from insight. The brands that win will be those that invest in sophisticated analytics capable of pulling meaning from sprawling, multi-source datasets.

Behind all this sits the growing strategic importance of first-party data. As privacy and platform shifts accelerate, building trustworthy, consensual relationships with customers isn’t just a compliance issue; it’s the foundation for effective AI.

Marketers must treat first-party data as both their sustainable competitive advantage and the raw material for next-generation personalisation.

Bringing it all together

If Gartner’s predictions show us anything, it’s that marketing is rapidly fusing technology, intelligence, and empathy. The coming era won’t just be about automating campaigns; it’s about orchestrating complex systems (human and machine) around clear, measurable journeys. The goal should be to “proceed optimistically but cautiously” and “expect more human jobs from this” by creating a system where data, AI models and people can collaborate seamlessly in real time.

And for those of us advising businesses on their digital marketing? Let’s remember Gartner’s timescale rule of thumb: take the prediction, add two years, then start building the bridge from today to there.