How AI Turns a Cost Center into a Growth Engine
Marketing technology was once celebrated as the key to real-time personalization, process automation, and deep customer insight. Yet, despite billions invested since its surge in 2011, many organizations have only seen small improvements. Now, with AI entering the scene, the industry has a second chance to fulfill its promises, and the choices leaders make today will determine if martech becomes a true growth driver or continues to be misunderstood as just an expense.
The Martech Maturity Gap
Today, martech is a $131 billion industry, expected to grow to $215 billion by 2027. Still, 65% of B2C organizations rate themselves as only “developing” or “operational” in martech maturity. Most brands automate outdated processes instead of moving toward omnichannel personalization or fully integrated customer journeys. A gap exists between how organizations perceive their progress and their actual development, often shown during in-depth interviews: they overestimate their operational maturity but lack key enablers such as C-suite sponsorship, cross-channel integration, and strong data governance.
Four Fault Lines Holding Martech Back
Lack of Executive Sponsorship: Martech efforts are often isolated, driven by marketing teams but rarely supported by the C-suite. Without high-level ownership, the technology doesn't align with enterprise strategy or reach its full potential. Frequent leadership changes and unclear roles between marketing and digital teams make the problem worse.
Complexity Fragments Customer Connection: The typical Fortune 500 martech stack is filled with duplicated tools. 47% of leaders say integration and stack complexity are major obstacles. Legacy systems and fragmented data prevent stacks from delivering seamless, personalized customer experiences.
Misaligned Measurement: Most organizations don’t measure martech as a growth driver. Instead of linking technology spending to revenue, lifetime value, or strategic goals, teams focus on operational metrics—email volume, open rates, and campaign delivery. This hides martech’s potential and treats it as a routine expense.
Capabilities Lag Technology: With 34% of organizations citing lack of skilled talent as a barrier, the fast pace of martech innovation has outpaced workforce skills. Adding new tools without ongoing training just automates outdated processes, leaving its full potential unused.
Unlocking AI’s Promise: A New Playbook
AI provides the chance to redesign martech, enabling real-time personalization and adaptive campaign management. To succeed, leaders must:
Elevate Martech to the C-suite: True transformation happens when martech is managed at the highest level and closely connected to overall enterprise goals. Senior leaders need to become fluent in martech, integrate technology into long-term strategies, and directly link investments to ROI and value creation.
Develop a Strong Data Strategy: Shift from fragmented identifiers to dynamic customer graphs. Focus on creating enterprise-wide identity resolution, using owned data and predictive intelligence to foresee customer needs and preferences. AI-driven propensity scoring and modeling become essential for delivering improved customer experiences.
Adopt Digital-First Ways of Working: Break down silos between marketing, product, data science, and technology teams. Continually invest in talent development and foster collaborative, digital-first cultures that value innovation and agility.
Turn Disconnected Tools into Intelligent Systems: Instead of simply adding new tools, prioritize streamlining and integration. Rationalize overlapping systems, phase out outdated platforms, and utilize AI agents to coordinate data, decision-making, creative design, and multi-channel distribution. An orchestration layer that governs these processes creates synergy, efficiency, and measurable results across the entire stack.
Measuring Martech as a Growth Engine
Marketers need to look beyond just counting clicks and impressions. They should adopt frameworks that measure total cost of ownership (TCO), operational efficiencies, and actual revenue impact. A unified measurement approach—tracking conversion growth, productivity improvements, and cost reductions—allows for clear ROI measurement and builds confidence to expand martech investments. Connecting TCO and results changes perceptions, positioning martech as a strategic growth driver rather than just a cost of doing business.
Building the Marketer of Tomorrow
Technology is only as valuable as the people using it. Organizations should view martech skill development as a journey, not a one-time event, supporting continuous onboarding and modular, ongoing learning. AI acts as a co-pilot: automating repetitive tasks, highlighting actionable insights, and lowering the technical barriers so marketers can focus on creative and strategic work. With effective change management and leadership incentives, talent becomes empowered to drive adaptive, AI-enabled customer experiences.
The next phase of martech will not be characterized by more tools but by redefining marketing as an agile, intelligent function focused on AI and customer needs. Success relies on bold strategy, simplified systems, empowered talent, and dependable measurement. Organizations that embrace this opportunity will see martech not just as a cost center but as a powerful driver of sustainable growth.