By Upendra Mishra
BOSTON–According to a recent Boston Consulting Group (BCG) article by Janet Balis, Vas Bakopoulos, and Lauren Wiener, artificial intelligence is poised to transform marketing far beyond simple efficiency gains.
While many organizations treat AI as a set of disconnected tools to automate basic tasks, BCG argues that the real opportunity is far more profound: AI can help chief marketing officers (CMOs) reinvent the entire marketing operating model to unlock enterprise-level growth and value.
BCG notes that although AI can streamline processes, leaders who focus solely on productivity “are missing the bigger picture.” Instead, the authors emphasize AI’s ability to accelerate data flows, integrate decision-making, and eliminate friction across previously siloed teams and platforms. This means CMOs can move past traditional linear campaign cycles and instead adopt a faster, intelligence-driven model that blends human judgment with AI-enabled insights.
To understand how this shift is unfolding, BCG and the Global Marketing and Media Alliance surveyed about 60 senior marketing executives. Their findings reveal both urgency and misalignment. Only 15% of companies have scaled AI cross-functionally, and BCG reports a clear C-suite disconnect over AI’s future value. CMOs tend to emphasize marketing effectiveness and personalization, while CEOs and CFOs focus on broader enterprise growth. Until leaders align on common outcomes, BCG warns that scaling AI will remain elusive.
One of BCG’s most important recommendations is for CMOs to shift their attention from isolated use cases to end-to-end workflows—especially within creative and media. According to the BCG post, AI will most rapidly transform tasks such as creative personalization, translation, versioning, content management, and certain production functions. These areas rely on existing creative inputs and require less human judgment, making them ideal early wins.
Media workflows follow a similar pattern. BCG’s research suggests that measurement, planning, and buying are particularly ripe for AI-driven acceleration in the next two to three years. Early gains will likely appear in programmatic channels, search, social, online video, and e-commerce placements.
A major shift highlighted by BCG is the rise of agentic AI, which can autonomously carry out complex marketing processes. Within a few years, survey respondents expect agentic AI to handle more than one-fifth of the total marketing workload. This evolution will change how marketers collaborate with agencies, internal teams, and technology partners. BCG reports that marketing leaders anticipate agency contributions dropping by roughly a dozen percentage points as technology assumes more responsibility.
This disruption opens the door for CMOs to rethink agency partnerships. However, BCG notes that many CMOs remain unsure whether agencies are ready to scale AI effectively. The article argues that the future requires outcome-driven partnerships with redesigned commercial structures that reflect shared value creation—not legacy models built around hours or deliverables.
BCG concludes with a clear mandate. CMOs must align their C-suite around a unified AI vision, prioritize high-impact workflows, reinvent agency relationships, and reimagine talent for a world where humans and AI collaborate deeply. As BCG writes, the next wave of AI in marketing will be “more systemic than incremental,” and leaders who boldly reshape their operating model will be best positioned to drive growth and enterprise value.
Editor’s note: This article is based on insights from the Boston Consulting Group (BCG). To view the original article, please click here.
(Upendra Mishra is the author of After the Fall: How Owen Lost Everything and Found What Really Matters and Precise Marketing: The Proven System for Growing Revenue in a Noisy World. He is the Managing Partner of The Mishra Group. Learn more at www.PreciseMarketingInc.com)
