By 2026, AI will make heads roll in marketing departments

36% of CMOs expect staff cuts within the next 12 to 24 months as a result of the use of AI.

For the past three years there has been a lot of talk about the risks and opportunities that AI potentially brings to marketing departments. However, neither the advantages nor the disadvantages emanating from this technology had until now become very palpable in this field of activity. Everything will change, however, in 2026, when the cost savings that AI promised will soon finally begin to materialize in marketing departments and those savings will ultimately translate into staff cuts.

According to a recent report by Spencer Stuart in which 90 CMOs and other marketing leaders took part, 36% expect a reduction in the work teams under their charge between the next 12 and 24 months as a result of the use of AI and the elimination of redundancies made possible by this technology.

Among large companies the outlook is even bleaker. 47% of CMOs who work professionally in companies that bill more than $20 billion a year predict staff cuts between the next 12 and 24 months. And 32% confess to having already made cuts in the last year.

Such cuts will be part of, according to Spencer Stuart, the growing pressure that companies are currently struggling to generate returns after investing heavily in AI over the last three years. And it seems that this long-awaited return will take the form of drastic reductions in company workforces (in marketing departments in particular).

37% of CMOs of companies with a turnover of more than $20 billion confess that CEOs and CFOs expect them to reduce costs in the marketing department by at least 20% over the next two years.

A second investigation by the consulting firm Teneo concludes, on the other hand, that the majority of CEOs have not yet observed any type of return or, failing that, savings as a result of the copious investment invested in AI.

CMOs are increasingly under pressure from CEOs who want to see a return on the huge investment in AI

Although in some marketing departments the emergence of AI has ended up effectively translating into staff cuts, others are betting on alternative formulas to layoffs to save costs. And such alternative formulas involve reducing dependence on advertising agencies, refusing to hire freelance professionals or eliminating creative roles such as «copywriter», «email marketer» or video producer. This is at least what Spencer Stuart’s study concludes.

The cuts in marketing departments are not, in any case, solely and exclusively attributable to the loud entry on the scene of AI. And they are also directly related to the growing slowdown in the economy and the correction motivated by the high volume of hiring that occurred during the pandemic, says Tim Derdenger, associate professor of Marketing and Strategy at the Tepper School of Business at Carnegie Mellon University, in statements to The Wall Street Journal.

Even though the growing prominence of AI in marketing departments is opening the spigot of personnel cuts, some CMOs point out that newer roles such as «prompt engineer», «data technologist», «AI search expert» or «AI ops analyst» are also being created. However, only 4% of marketing directors surveyed by Spencer Stuart say they have recruited new staff over the past year.

It is also worth highlighting that, regardless of whether or not AI translates into cost savings in marketing departments, for most CMOs the biggest challenge remains efficiently integrating the artificial intelligence tools they have at their disposal. And only 3% of CMOs can boast that AI plays any kind of role in each and every marketing department operation. It is also worrying that no CMO describes the department they lead as a fully AI-native organization.

Source: www.marketingdirecto.com