CMOs raid budgets to fund AI drive but hit maturity gap

Chief marketing officers are now funnelling an average of 15.3% of their total marketing budgets into artificial intelligence, in many cases raiding their already depleted budgets to pay for it, yet a significant “maturity gap” threatens to undermine these investments.

So says the 2026 Gartner CMO Spend Survey, which reveals that while the appetite for AI transformation is at an all-time high, the internal infrastructure to support it remains dangerously thin.

The study, which surveyed 401 marketing leaders across the UK, Europe and North America, highlights a stark contradiction in the C-suite. Roughly 70% of CMOs have declared becoming an AI leader a “critical goal” for 2026. However, that same percentage – 70% – admit their internal processes are not yet mature enough to effectively scale the technology. Currently, only 30% of organisations report having fully developed AI readiness.

Gartner Marketing VP analyst and chief of research Ewan McIntyre said: “CMOs recognise AI’s potential as a force multiplier for growth and efficiency, but most marketing organisations are not yet built to capture that value. The risk is that CMOs invest in AI tools faster than they build the data foundations, processes, governance and talent required to scale them.”

This rush to innovate comes at a time of intense financial pressure. Marketing budgets have remained effectively flat, ticking up only slightly to 7.8% of total company revenue in 2026, compared to 7.7% the previous year. With 56% of CMOs claiming they lack the funds to deliver on their 2026 strategies, many are being forced to “cannibalise” existing programmes to fund their AI ambitions.

The survey suggests a widening divide between AI “leaders” and “laggards”. Organisations with mature AI capabilities are outspending their peers, allocating 21.3% of their budgets to AI initiatives. These high-performers also enjoy larger overall budgets, averaging 8.9% of company revenue, and demonstrate greater “budget agility”, allowing them to pivot resources toward innovation more quickly.

For the majority of CMOs, however, the need to do more with less is still challenging, Over half of respondents (54%) reported insufficient resources to meet their current goals. This environment is forcing a period of “sharper prioritisation”, where traditional marketing activities are being deprioritised to make room for AI-enabled transformation.

While overall marketing budgets have remained effectively flat, CMOs are still expected to deliver growth, efficiency and AI-enabled transformation. The survey found that 56% of CMOs say their marketing organisation lacks the budget required to deliver their 2026 strategy, while 54% report insufficient resources.

This resource gap is forcing CMOs to make sharper decisions about where to invest, what to deprioritise and how to reallocate existing resources toward capabilities that can create greater business impact. As AI becomes a larger share of marketing investment, CMOs must ensure this spend is supported by the right operating model, governance, data foundations and talent.

McIntyre concluded: “CMOs are being asked to deliver growth, efficiency and transformation without meaningful budget expansion. Those who succeed will make deliberate, data-driven trade-offs and treat AI as a force multiplier.”

CMOs raid budgets to fund AI drive but hit maturity gap

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