AI will no longer be a future disruptor for marketing. It is already changing discovery and purchasing decisions and how organizations evaluate market opportunities and compete for growth. Despite this, many marketing leaders are still evaluated primarily on campaign execution rather than their ability to drive business transformation.
Gartner research shows a surprising disconnect. While 82% of business leaders say their company’s brand and culture must evolve to keep pace with AI, only 15% of CEOs believe their marketing leader is highly AI-savvy. This gap puts marketing’s relevance at risk just when it should be expanding. The future opportunity is not about automating additional marketing activities. It’s about using artificial intelligence to shape markets, guide strategic choices and elevate brand as an engine of business growth.
Artificial intelligence is accelerating forces that have been building for years. Customers are increasingly relying on generative AI tools to research products, compare alternatives and even generate recommendations internally. As a result, brands compete in environments they cannot fully see, much less control. At the same time, generative AI is flooding the market with undifferentiated content, eroding trust and increasing skepticism.
These changes threaten traditional marketing schemes. Channel optimization and creative efficiency are no longer sufficient to protect relevance or influence. Gartner research found that the average marketing leader has only an 11% chance of exceeding CEO and CFO expectations. This statistic reflects a deeper problem. Many organizations still see marketing as an execution driver and not a strategic partner.
Interpret the interruption and act with confidence
Artificial intelligence intensifies the need for visionary leadership. Marketing leaders who lack strategic clarity risk being sidelined as other functions gain access to AI-powered insights and tools. Those who take on a broader role can help the company interpret change and act with confidence.
Gartner research consistently finds that a specific profile of marketing leaders outperforms their peers. They are described as market shapers. They excel at innovation, positioning and generating insights and adapt their behaviors to what the company needs most.
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Market shapers perform better because they influence how customers perceive value, how leaders prioritize investments, and how the organization deals with disruptions. They are also leaders in the adoption and advantage of artificial intelligence. They are already using AI more extensively and in a wider range of use cases than their peers. More importantly, they apply AI beyond creative production or task automation.
They use AI to monitor changing customer needs, synthesize fragmented signals, and run rapid experiments that inform strategic decisions. They translate macro signals into decisions about where to compete, how to differentiate and which innovations to invest in.
Efficiency alone is not enough
Many marketing organizations make the mistake of viewing AI primarily as an efficiency tool. Productivity gains importance, but this narrow focus limits marketing’s credibility with leadership, keeping its contributions focused on execution. It also doesn’t capture the greater value of artificial intelligence.
Leaders shaping the market use artificial intelligence to accelerate insights. They apply it to understand how customer demands are evolving, how AI discovery is changing purchase paths, and where trust is eroding. They use AI to quickly test hypotheses, simulate scenarios, and explore unmet needs before committing significant resources.
This requires more than just new technology. It also needs people trained to think in new ways.
Gartner research shows that teams led by market shapers demonstrate greater proficiency in strategy, critical thinking, customer understanding and data literacy. This allows marketers to ask better AI questions, test generic results, and turn recommendations into actions the business can take.
As AI accelerates commoditization and misinformation, branding becomes one of the few levers organizations can use to claim a distinctive and trusted position. Our research shows that companies with high-performing brand strategies are twice as likely to exceed growth goals. The differentiator is not increased spending. It’s a stronger alignment between brand and business strategy.
Marketing leaders who shape the market treat branding as a business discipline. They use AI-generated insights to update value propositions, drive innovation priorities and protect trust. Brand strategy becomes the channel through which AI-driven information is translated into direction.
The four key behaviors of market shapers
Gartner identifies four behaviors that distinguish market shapers, each of which gains speed and accuracy when reinforced by artificial intelligence:
- Customer Influencer: Shape customer preferences ensuring the brand remains visible and trustworthy across AI-mediated journeys. This includes optimizing content for AI discovery and using AI-enabled monitoring to detect misinformation early.
- Customer Advocate: Drive business priorities by synthesizing signals from the voice of customers. AI helps aggregate direct, indirect and inferred feedback to keep decisions based on real customer value.
- Market designer: Drive innovation towards ideas that strengthen the brand’s future ambitions. Synthetic data and rapid prototyping allow teams to test concepts before scaling investments.
- Market wayfinder: Translate disruptive signals into a coherent narrative for the enterprise. AI-powered scenario planning helps leaders anticipate risks and opportunities, while branding provides the story that aligns action across functions.
Don’t be fooled into chasing every new AI feature. Success depends on identifying the behavior that shapes the most important market and using artificial intelligence to accelerate it. This means investing as much in skills as in tools and ensuring that teams can think with AI rather than just manage it.
It also means redefining success. In a world driven by artificial intelligence, the value of marketing is measured not only by the performance of campaigns, but by its ability to guide strategic choices, protect trust and shape how the company presents itself to the market.
Artificial intelligence will not diminish the importance of marketing leadership. It will expose the difference between those who execute and those who shape direction. Leaders who take on the role of market shapers will help their organizations overcome disruption, align brand with strategy, and unlock sustainable growth in the age of AI.
Sharon Cantor Ceurvorst is a VP analyst in Gartner MAMarket practicespecializing in marketing leadership and brand strategy. Learn more about how to boost AI returns in Gartner Marketing Symposium/Xpo, June 8-10, 2026 in Denver.
