Art and Algorithms: What CEOs Should Look For in an AI-First Chief Marketing Officer

To build an AI-first company, CEOs need bold executives who can challenge assumptions, reimagine how the business works, and keep people focused and inspired through relentless change. In this second article of our series on building an AI-first senior leadership team, we examine how AI is redefining the role and reach of the chief marketing officer.

For most AI-ambitious CEOs, marketing is usually the first port of call for experimentation. Data rich, customer facing, and heavily digital, it’s tailor made for piloting GenAI, agentic AI, and machine learning technologies. Yet of the hundreds of CEOs we’ve worked with on AI transformations, few fully grasp how AI positions their chief marketing officer (CMO) to drive significant growth and shareholder value.

Historically, CMOs have been seen as right-brain, creative storytellers who craft brands and narratives and orchestrate marketing campaigns. But in the past decade, those traditional strengths have been increasingly augmented by left-brain, analytical skills, with marketing chiefs harnessing data to optimize resources, fine-tune campaigns, and deliver measurable ROI.

AI now promises to supercharge that analytical evolution—and in a way that goes far beyond making marketing more efficient or even enhancing personalization. Because the CMO, more than any other member of the senior leadership team, is uniquely positioned to scale AI across the company to turbocharge enterprise growth.

Think of an AI-first CMO as a “chief growth architect.” Working side-by-side with the chief technology officer, the CMO will design martech data flows and strategies that tear down silos and connect demand signals rapidly and seamlessly to an integrated growth agenda. If done correctly, this will ruffle some C-suite egos. But as those real-time demand signals shape product development and inform supply chain and finance decisions, the AI-first CMO will play a crucial role in redefining ways of working that sharpen the organization’s competitive edge.

But that promise won’t be realized unless the CEO gains a deeper understanding of how AI will change the CMO’s traditional remit—and what it will take to excel in the role. They’ll also need to give their CMO unwavering support as they position the whole company to capture the full growth value of AI investments.

The Rise of the Value-Creating CMO

CMOs have always blended art and science in their work. In recent years, that balance has shifted more towards science, as forward-minded marketing chiefs focus on how campaigns, content, channels, and customer interactions come together to deliver a seamless brand experience.

AI is now accelerating this shift. What was once tactical coordination is evolving into strategic orchestration, as the CMO-turned-growth architect aligns functions across the business to act on demand signals in real time.

As architects, CMOs own (or will soon own) the data inputs, commercial growth platforms, and measurement models that form a state-of-the-art martech stack—one that will do much more than automate content creation or campaign orchestration. It will deliver better business outcomes by enabling smarter, faster decision making across functions.

That’s not to understate the challenge of aligning fragmented systems. In most companies, marketing platforms such as paid, owned, and earned media and commerce were not initially designed to work together. The CMO will need to work hand in hand with the chief technology officer to replace all that isolated optimization logic with enterprise-wide logic.Holistically optimizing performance will also entail negotiating with external partners (technology companies, media owners, creative and media agencies, and content creators) to harmonize different incentive and measurement systems.

It’s worth the effort, though. Because as systems align, the marketing department becomes an invaluable source of real-time customer behavior signals that can inform branding, media and creative strategies, product innovations, pricing and discounting decisions, and resource allocation.

In other words, it will transform marketing into a growth center.

This is not theoretical. Our research shows that the top 5% of companies deriving significant bottom-line value from AI are 50% more likely to have shared business–IT ownership of AI operating models that give each clear decision rights and accountability.

Is Your CMO AI-First? Five Questions CEOs Should Ask

Even in an AI-first company, great marketing will still demand human-driven, deeply authentic creative output. But marketing will evolve dramatically—so dramatically, in fact, that it will be unrecognizable from even five years ago. Here are five questions every CEO can ask to determine whether their CMO is equipped for what’s next.

Can my CMO work together with the chief technology officer to build the AI and data backbone for our martech stack? In an AI-first organization, the CMO doesn’t just deploy tools. They design the infrastructure that lets customer and marketing data, analytics, and automation flow through every part of the business.

The most scientifically savvy CMOs will partner with IT to build a small, central team of highly technical experts. These specialists—ideally people who are deeply skilled in channels, technology, and analytics—will develop the platforms, pipelines, and capabilities that connect consumer, competitor, and cultural data signals. This will enable intelligent decisions not only in marketing but also across products, supply chain, and finance.

Is my CMO as passionate about developing people as they are about building platforms? In an AI-first company, the CMO will not only need to hire and empower elite technical specialists. They’ll also need to reskill generalists, elevate strategic capabilities, and redesign incentives around human-to-agentic workflow management. It’s important to note that AI agents won’t operate in isolation. They’ll be embedded in reimagined processes that amplify human work, improving data flows and accelerating decision making across the enterprise.

This transformation will call for creating structured training and certification programs, investing in hands-on learning, and embedding new ways of working down to the last marketer—including those in local markets. While this may well put short-term pressure on P&L, it’s a small hurdle to clear to move the company beyond isolated pilots to unlocking AI value at scale.

Can my CMO go deep on execution? A CMO who talks about AI only in abstract terms won’t cut it. A CEO should be able to grill their CMO on the nitty-gritty details of how data flows through the organization and what’s being done to improve ROI in every platform, and in every campaign, to drive growth in real time.

This takes a high degree of AI curiosity and technical fluency. It also takes an assertive personality. Your CMO needs to be one of the loudest voices at the transformation table.Because if they are not bringing every conversation back to data, capability, and results, then they’re not going deep enough on execution.

Am I prepared to give the CMO my full backing as they break down silos? In an AI-first company, the CMO cannot break down silos while operating within their traditional boundaries. The CEO should expect resistance from other C-suite leaders who argue that the CMO is stepping out of their lane. But that friction should be greeted as a sign of progress—and an opportunity to help other senior leaders see the connected future more clearly.

Can my CMO turn marketing into a growth engine while also protecting human-driven creativity? AI can personalize, predict, and optimize, but it cannot feel emotions. An AI-first CMO will never lose sight of this. They will ensure human-driven creative thrives alongside AI as it scales—by relentlessly elevating and honoring human-driven storytelling even as marketing becomes increasingly data-driven.

For most CEOs, marketing may be where AI experimentation starts. But it’s also where the company’s real transformation begins. With an AI-first CMO acting as a chief growth architect, silos will collapse as new infrastructure and new ways of working rewire how the business grows, learns, and connects with customers.

And while breaking down silos rarely wins friends, CEOs who back their CMOs throughout the effort are far more likely to see their companies make the leap from experimenting with AI to being truly transformed by it.