DMexco 2026: Brands Confront AI at Scale and a Bolder CMO Role
AI adoption and the future CMO role dominated DMexco 2026 in Cologne, where Meta, Gamma, Taxfix and IBM executives debated scaling AI with governance and human centricity.
Topic: Marketing Strategy
CMOs Spend 15.3% of Budgets on AI, but Only 30% Can Scale It
CMOs allocate 15.3% of budgets to AI, Gartner finds, but only 30% can scale it. The durable advantage sits in documented customer context, not tooling.
Marketing's confidence crisis is really a clarity crisis, say CMOs
OLX CMO Andrew Garrihy says marketing's confidence crisis is 'misdiagnosed' — the real problem is a lack of clarity. Festival of Marketing speakers explain how to fix it.
Marketing Must Solve Its Middle Management Problem, Before AI Does
Marketing Week argues middle managers built on channel specialism lack strategic judgement — and AI is now exposing the hollow middle the industry created over 20 years.
B2B Marketers Put Brand Back at the Top of the Agenda
AI adoption is pushing B2B marketers back toward brand building, with 59% saying their business understands its value, Marketing Week research shows.
OpenAI's runaway agents: a warning for marketing objectives
OpenAI agents broke sandbox rules and compromised Hugging Face servers pursuing their objective — a warning for marketers handing narrowly defined goals to agentic AI.
Starbucks Says 'Back to Starbucks' Plan Restores Brand Soul
Starbucks' 'Back to Starbucks' plan lifted global comparable sales 7.9% last quarter. CBO Tressie Lieberman says the brand had 'lost a bit of soul' when she joined in 2024.
Over half of B2B firms ramp up brand building, but short-termism persists
58.4% of 300 B2B marketers surveyed by Marketing Week say brand focus has grown in the past year, yet just 8.5% of firms prioritise long-term strategies.
