AI is no longer a future disruptor for marketing. It is already changing discovery and buying decisions, and how organizations evaluate market opportunities and compete for growth. Despite this, many marketing leaders are still being evaluated primarily on campaign execution rather than their ability to guide enterprise 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 view their marketing leader as strongly AI savvy. That gap puts marketing’s relevance at risk just when it should be expanding. The opportunity ahead is not about automating more marketing tasks. It is about using AI to shape markets, guide strategic choices, and elevate brand as a driver of enterprise growth. 

AI is accelerating forces that have been building for years. Customers increasingly rely 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 shifts threaten traditional marketing playbooks. Channel optimization and creative efficiency are no longer enough to protect relevance or influence. Gartner research found the average marketing leader has only an 11% chance of exceeding CEO and CFO expectations. That statistic reflects a deeper issue. Many organizations still see marketing as an execution engine and not as a strategic partner. 

Interpret disruption 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-powered insights and tools. Those who step into a broader role can help the enterprise interpret disruption and act with confidence.

Gartner research consistently finds that a specific profile of marketing leaders outperforms peers. They are described as market shapers. They excel at innovation, positioning, and insight generation, and they adapt their behaviors to what the business needs most. 

Market shapers outperform because they influence how customers perceive value, how leaders prioritize investments, and how the organization navigates disruption. They are also leading the pack in AI adoption and advantage. They are already using AI more extensively and across a wider range of use cases than their peers. Most importantly, they apply AI beyond creative production or task automation. 

They use AI to monitor shifting 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 isn’t enough

Many marketing organizations make the mistake of seeing AI primarily as an efficiency tool. Productivity gains matter, but this narrow focus limits marketing’s credibility with leadership by keeping its contributions focused on execution. It also misses AI’s greatest value.

Market-shaping leaders use AI to accelerate insights. They apply it to understand how customer questions are evolving, how AI discovery is changing buying journeys, and where trust is eroding. They use AI to test hypotheses quickly, simulate scenarios, and explore unmet needs before committing significant resources. 

That requires more than new technology. It also needs people trained to think in new ways. 

Gartner research shows that teams led by market shapers demonstrate higher proficiency in strategy, critical thinking, customer understanding, and data literacy. That enables marketers to ask better questions of AI, challenge generic outputs, and turn recommendations into actions the enterprise can execute. 

As AI accelerates commoditization and misinformation, brand becomes one of the few levers 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 growth goals. The differentiator is not higher spending. It’s a stronger alignment between brand and business strategy. 

Market-shaping marketing leaders treat brand as an enterprise discipline. They use AI-generated insight to update value propositions, guide innovation priorities, and protect trust. Brand strategy becomes the channel through which AI-driven insight 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 precision when reinforced by AI:

• Customer influencer: Shape customer preference by ensuring the brand remains visible and trustworthy in AI-mediated journeys. This includes optimizing content for AI discovery and using AI-enabled monitoring to detect misinformation early.
• Customer advocate: Guide enterprise priorities by synthesizing voice-of-customer signals. AI helps aggregate direct, indirect, and inferred feedback to keep decisions grounded in real customer value.
• Market designer: Direct innovation toward ideas that reinforce future brand ambition. Synthetic data and rapid prototyping allow teams to test concepts before scaling investment.
• Market wayfinder: Translate disruptive signals into a coherent narrative for the enterprise. AI-powered scenario planning helps leaders anticipate risks and opportunities, while brand provides the story that aligns action across functions.

Do not be fooled into chasing every new AI capability. Success depends on identifying which market-shaping behavior matters most and using AI to accelerate it. That means investing in skills as much as tools, and ensuring teams can reason with AI rather than simply operate it.

It also means redefining success. In an AI-driven world, marketing’s value is measured not only by campaign performance but by its ability to guide strategic choices, protect trust, and shape how the enterprise shows up in the market.

AI will not diminish the importance of marketing leadership. It will expose the difference between those who execute and those who shape direction. The leaders who step into the role of market shaper will help their organizations navigate disruption, align brand with strategy, and unlock sustainable growth in the age of AI.

Sharon Cantor Ceurvorst is a VP Analyst in the Gartner Marketing Practice, specializing in marketing leadership and brand strategy.  Learn more about how to drive AI returns at the Gartner Marketing Symposium/Xpo, June 8-10, 2026, in Denver.

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