Oracle’s 14th Gartner Leader nod and its AI plan to keep Eloqua running

Oracle says it has been named a Leader in the 2026 Gartner Magic Quadrant for B2B Marketing Automation Platforms for the fourteenth consecutive year. The streak is older than the category's name. From 2013 to 2020 this report was known as the Magic Quadrant for CRM Lead Management, and in 2013 Oracle was recognized under the name Oracle (Eloqua).

Oracle plans to add deeper AI to Eloqua and connect its AI Agent Studio to Eloqua workflows, on what it calls a customer-paced path that leaves production campaigns, CRM integrations, governance models and operating processes in place.

Oracle describes its roadmap as a customer-paced path toward agentic marketing that does not require replacing production campaigns, CRM integrations or governance models. It also says customers can adopt its capabilities modularly. For a marketing operations leader with years of programs, scoring rules and CRM sync built in Eloqua, that approach could turn a migration project into a string of smaller purchases.

Four products, adopted separately

Gartner's definition of a B2B marketing automation platform is built around demand generation: capturing and qualifying leads and accounts, running multichannel engagement and measuring performance.

The split of work is spelled out. Marketers keep strategy, governance, approvals and performance. AI helps with audience discovery, program recommendations, content development, workflow setup and optimization, which places the agents ahead of the approval step, where the people signing off already sit.

Same quadrant, a different route

HubSpot also says it was named a Leader in the 2026 report, with Marketing Hub recognized for the sixth consecutive year. Its announcement describes a different way to bring agents into marketing automation.

HubSpot's Agent Builder lets marketers create custom agents in natural language. Angela DeFranco, VP of Product at HubSpot, said the company is helping marketers understand how they show up in AI answers and helping teams turn insights into campaigns.

Side by side, the biggest difference between these two Leaders is where the agents live. Oracle builds them in a governed studio tied to Fusion data. HubSpot lets outside agents in through open protocols. The better fit depends on where a company's customer data already sits: for a Fusion customer, Oracle says marketing runs on the same data, security and AI foundation as sales, service, finance and operations.

What a Leader placement leaves open

Eloqua customers pick between two options

Oracle gives customers two options. Companies already on Fusion can run marketing on the shared enterprise foundation. Companies that want standalone B2B marketing automation can keep Eloqua, which Oracle describes as an enterprise platform with open interoperability.

primeone business solutions, an Oracle CX partner that implements, integrates and develops Eloqua, says companies do not need to completely replace their existing system infrastructure and can selectively connect marketing automation with other applications. The firm's view is that the platform delivers the most when marketing, CRM, sales and data work together.

Once the planned AI Agent Studio connection reaches Eloqua, teams can test Oracle's no-rebuild promise against their own production programs.