AI is no longer a future disruptor for marketing. This is already changing discovery and purchasing decisions, as well as how organizations evaluate market opportunities and compete for growth. Despite this, many marketers are still evaluated primarily on campaign execution rather than their ability to guide business transformation.
Gartner research shows a striking disconnect. While 82% of business leaders say their company’s brand and culture must evolve to keep pace with AI, only 15% of CEOs consider their marketing manager to be very good at AI. This gap jeopardizes the relevance of marketing at the very time when it should be developing. The opportunity ahead is not about automating more marketing tasks. It’s about using AI to shape markets, guide strategic choices and elevate the brand as an engine for business growth.
AI is accelerating forces that have been developing for years. Customers are increasingly relying on generative AI tools to research products, compare alternatives, and even generate recommendations internally. As a result, brands are competing in environments they cannot fully see, let alone control. At the same time, generative AI is flooding the market with undifferentiated content, eroding trust and increasing skepticism.
These changes threaten traditional marketing strategies. Channel optimization and creative efficiency are no longer enough to protect relevance or influence. A Gartner study found that the average marketer has only an 11% chance of exceeding CEO and CFO expectations. This statistic reflects a deeper problem. Many organizations still view marketing as an execution driver and not a strategic partner.
Interpret disturbances and act with confidence
AI intensifies the need for visionary leadership. Marketing leaders who lack strategic clarity risk being sidelined as other functions gain access to AI-driven insights and tools. Those in a broader role can help the business interpret disruptions and act with confidence.
Gartner research consistently reveals 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 tailor their behaviors to the most important needs of the business.
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Market participants outperform because they influence how customers perceive value, how leaders prioritize investments, and how the organization responds to disruption. They are also leading the pack in AI adoption and benefits. They are already using AI more extensively and across 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 evolving customer needs, synthesize fragmented signals, and run rapid experiments that inform strategic decisions. They translate macroeconomic signals into decisions about where to compete, how to differentiate, and what 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 are important, but this narrow focus limits marketing’s credibility with executives by focusing its contributions on execution. It also misses the greater value of AI.
Market-shaping leaders are using AI to accelerate analytics. They apply it to understand how customer questions are evolving, how AI discovery is changing purchasing journeys, 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 new technology. It also requires people trained to think in new ways.
Gartner research shows that teams led by market participants demonstrate greater mastery of strategy, critical thinking, customer understanding, and data savvy. This allows marketers to ask AI better questions, challenge generic results, and turn recommendations into actions the business can execute.
As AI accelerates commodification and disinformation, branding becomes one of the few levers that organizations can use to claim a distinctive and trustworthy position. Our research shows that companies with high-performing brand strategies are twice as likely to exceed their growth goals. The differentiator is not higher spending. This is a stronger alignment between brand and business strategy.
Marketers who shape the market view branding as a business discipline. They use AI-generated insights to update value propositions, guide innovation priorities, and protect trust. Branding becomes the channel through which AI-driven insights translate into direction.
The four key behaviors of market shapers
Gartner identifies four behaviors that distinguish market participants, each gaining speed and accuracy when empowered by AI:
- Influencer customer: Shape customer preferences by ensuring the brand remains visible and trustworthy in AI-powered journeys. This includes optimizing content for AI discovery and using AI-based monitoring to quickly detect misinformation.
- Customer advocate: Guide business priorities by synthesizing customer voice signals. AI helps aggregate direct, indirect, and inferred feedback so that decisions are based on true customer value.
- Market designer: Direct innovation towards ideas that reinforce the future ambitions of the brand. Synthetic data and rapid prototyping allow teams to test concepts before investing at scale.
- Market Orienter: Translate disruptive signals into a coherent story for the business. AI-driven scenario planning helps leaders anticipate risks and opportunities, while branding provides the story that aligns actions across functions.
Don’t be fooled into chasing every new AI ability. Success depends on identifying the most important behavior in market change and using AI to accelerate it. This means investing in skills as much as tools, and ensuring teams can reason with AI rather than just make it work.
It also means redefining success. In an AI-driven world, the value of marketing is measured not only by campaign performance, but also by its ability to guide strategic choices, protect trust, and shape how the business presents itself in the marketplace.
AI will not diminish the importance of marketing leadership. This will expose the difference between those who execute and those who shape direction. Leaders who take on the role of market shaper will help their organizations navigate disruption, align brand with strategy, and unlock sustainable growth in the AI era.
Sharon Cantor Ceurvorst is vice president analyst within the Gartner M.AMarketing practicespecializing in marketing leadership and brand strategy. Learn more about how to generate returns on AI at Gartner Marketing Symposium/Xpo, June 8-10, 2026, in Denver.
