Ai Technology

Retailers need a separate Performance Max campaign for Google's new local shopper setting

Google's Local Customer Optimization won't run on feed-based Performance Max campaigns, and Store Sales lands in Data Manager at the end of September.

CMO Tenure Ticks Up as B2B Marketing Adopts AI

Spencer Stuart finds Fortune 500 CMO tenure edged up in 2024, while Forrester reports wide AI tool adoption alongside gaps in strategy and measurement.

OpenAI and Meta Take Separate Paths to Automating Marketing

OpenAI is building ChatGPT into a marketing workspace and ad channel, while Meta continues automating ad buying. Here's what each has said so far.

Google Ads Adds AI Dashboards and In-Store Sales Tools

Google Ads rolled out prompt-based AI dashboards and new in-store sales measurement tools in early September 2026, per Search Engine Land.

15,505 martech tools later, the fight is over who controls orchestration

As martech tool growth flattens, vendors are racing to own the orchestration layer that decides the next action for every customer across channels.

100% of revenue leaders say they use AI, but most can’t prove it pays off

Salesloft’s 500-leader benchmark finds universal AI use in revenue teams, yet only 20.6% call it production-ready. The bottleneck is data quality and workflow f

80% of CMOs already use genAI, but budgets and contracts are still tightening

Surveys from Duke/Deloitte, BCG, and Forrester point to similar pressures: GenAI adoption is rising, while leaders face tighter scrutiny on spending and executi

Consumption-based martech is bringing surprise AI bills to CMO budgets

Gartner data show CMOs put 15.3% of budgets into AI, but only 30% can scale. Usage-based martech is rising, and half of adopters keep renegotiating.

100% of revenue teams say they use AI, but only 20.6% can show measurable results

Salesloft’s benchmark shows universal AI use in revenue orgs, yet most can’t tie it to measurable outcomes. The same gap is showing up in healthcare revenue cyc

Nearly 3 in 4 companies put RevOps in the C-suite, but 89% still lack goals

Salesloft and Wakefield found 73% of firms now have a C-suite RevOps role. Nearly all see AI ROI, yet strategic mandates and metrics are still muddy.

Marketing teams are buying AI before they can govern it

Benchmarks from The CMO Survey, Forrester, and CMI show AI rising on budget lists while governance and fundamentals lag. Plan for measurement, data, and workflo

AI is everywhere in marketing, but data and hiring plans still lag

New 2026 research from HubSpot, Demand Gen Report, and the AMA shows AI adoption is near-universal. The harder work is governance: data visibility, brand qualit

AI is pulling ad production in-house

Reuters reporting on AI-enabled in-housing is showing up in 2026 org charts: global capability centers now build creative at “two-hour” speeds, while events sti

Optimizely shifts marketing AI RFPs from model selection to task fit

Optimizely launched post-trained marketing models and “Virtual Teammates,” as its own research shows teams still lack cookieless and first-party plans.

Canva’s AI marketing push is running into “AI slop” governance

Canva’s 2026 survey data and its World Tour playbook point to the same ops shift: scale creative with AI, but prove it’s human-led.

AI agent evaluation is becoming the production gate

As AI agents spread across marketing and service, enterprises are buying measurement, not magic: 3CLogic scores 100% of voice-AI calls, while AI visibility work

Marketing AI budgets hit 15.3%, but most teams can’t trust the data yet

Gartner reports CMOs are directing 15.3% of marketing budgets to AI in 2026, yet only 30% say they are ready to scale. The bigger hurdle is getting data in orde

GenAI gains remain limited as effective use stays low

NROC’s Q2 2026 data puts a number on the AI gap: access is broad, effectiveness is rare, and data plumbing plus model choices decide whether teams see value.

Ads are moving into AI assistants, and martech teams are scrambling to track what they do

AI assistants are adding ad units and transactions as vendors ship agent evaluators, AI workflow “OS” tools, and new governance patterns.

AI assistants are becoming ad space, and brand rules now control what gets published

As ads move into AI assistants, martech teams are racing to measure visibility and keep AI-written content on-brand.

AI search is pushing marketing, HR and facilities onto one set of AI rules

New AEO guidance, creator briefs, and workplace AI rules are colliding with building analytics. Ops leaders are treating “AI visibility” as a governed system.

Salesforce’s Claudeforce lets Claude run CRM tasks

Salesforce and Anthropic’s new Claudeforce plug-in bakes 37 sales tasks into Claude, pushing CIOs to govern AI actions, not just AI answers.

Google rebuilt its Ads API Developer Assistant as a global AI coding plugin

Google’s v4.0.0 turns its Google Ads API Developer Assistant into a global plugin for AI coding tools, adding GAQL validation, troubleshooting and live reportin

Klaviyo is buying Agency to add returns, order tracking and AI support to its marketing tools

Klaviyo’s deal for Elias Torres’ Agency signals a shift: AI agents for post‑sale support are becoming a standard line item in ecommerce martech stacks.

Agency and MSP growth rankings are becoming a procurement filter for AI-era partners

Marketbridge’s 19% gross-income jump and NWN’s 55% three-year growth show buyers are using scale, staffing and retention metrics to shortlist services firms.

Gartner’s $6.37T IT spend forecast is pulling marketing AI agents into enterprise buying cycles faster

Gartner expects IT spending to hit $6.37T in 2026. That infrastructure surge is changing how marketing AI agents get funded, secured, and procured.

Dreamforce 2026 is forcing CX teams to move past chatbot containment and into audited AI resolution

Dreamforce 2026’s “agentic enterprise” message lands with a practical constraint: AI agents only help CX when they can complete approved work on clean, connecte

Gong is pushing Revenue AI from insight to execution as agentic workflows collide with Azure procurement

Gong is using Microsoft Marketplace distribution and new agentic-workflow messaging to move Revenue AI into governed, IT-owned systems, not rep-installed tools.

Walmart’s 38% ad growth is turning retail media into an operating-margin lever, and procurement teams should treat Connect like a platform, not a channel

Walmart’s Q2 results put retail media, CTV, and Sparky on the same P&L arc. That shifts how brands should spec data, measurement, and CTV buys.

GTM singularity is forcing RevOps teams to audit how AI intermediaries describe their products

Forrester’s “GTM singularity” framing is showing up as a concrete ops problem: AI tools are shaping shortlists and even negotiations, pushing RevOps to treat “A