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MARTECH PRIORITIES: 2026 AI AND DIGITAL TRENDS

When Martech Meets AI, Customer Experience Transforms

Explore the key martech takeaways from Adobe’s 2026 AI and Digital Trends report — and the actions leaders must take to align data, content, and workflows for AI-driven customer experience orchestration.

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Section 1

Powering Profiles with Data and Insights

Section 2

Streamlining Content and Scaling Campaigns

Section 3

Driving Impact with Unified Workflows

Section 4

The Bottom Line for Martech Leaders

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How Martech Is Empowering Customer Experience Orchestration

AI is already accelerating marketing and IT operations, but its true potential lies in deepening customer engagement, not just automating tasks. For martech leaders — those who bridge marketing strategy and technology execution — realizing that potential means aligning data maturity, content production, and workflow optimization into a unified growth engine. This overview distills the Adobe 2026 AI and Digital Trends findings into three critical areas for martech leaders: powering profiles with data and insights, streamlining content and scaling campaigns, and driving impact with unified workflows.

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Section 1

Powering Profiles with Data and Insights

Customers expect streamlined brand experiences and are already using AI to find them, but organizations lack the data foundations needed to deliver on those demands. Prioritize data unification, quality, and accessibility before integrating agentic AI into customer interactions.

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Customers are already using AI to shape their brand experiences, raising the bar for intelligent interactions across touchpoints.
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65%

of customers regularly or occasionally use AI tools at work and in their personal lives.

56%

of customers believe AI will improve their overall experience with brands.

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Martech leaders are turning to agentic AI to address changing customer habits, believing it will play a larger role in customer interactions.

77%

expect at least half of customer support interactions to be handled directly by agentic AI within the next 18 months.

71%

anticipate the same for post‑purchase support.

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Any AI initiatives, especially agentic AI deployments, will stall without connected data and insights.
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44% say their data quality and accessibility are adequate for AI

44% say their data quality and accessibility are adequate for AI.

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49% say their organization’s ability to advance AI initiatives is limited by its current level of data unification and structure

49% say their organization’s ability to advance AI initiatives is limited by its current level of data unification and structure.

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42% report having a unified customer data foundation for extracting insights from AI‑generated data

42% report having a unified customer data foundation for extracting insights from AI‑generated data.

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For agentic AI in particular, data fragmentation threatens execution plans.
74% of martech leaders
cite data integration and quality as a top barrier to implementing agentic AI solutions.
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Section 2

Streamlining Content and Scaling Campaigns

Creative demand is outpacing resources, but generative AI is already improving content speed, decision‑making, and productivity — and agentic AI promises to bring these operations to scale. However, without unified data for connected insights, teams risk campaigns that underperform and an inability to capture AI’s full impact.

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Irrelevant content increases churn, but brands struggle with limited creative resources.
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50%

of customers are likely to disengage from a brand if a personalized interaction feels irrelevant.

52%

of martech leaders say their organization’s content supply chain is largely linear and resource‑intensive.

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Teams are embedding generative AI across campaign workflows to operate with greater speed and precision.
Top generative AI workflows — content creation 43%, brand discovery 39%, personalization 34%, document management 31%, creative tasks 22%
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Generative AI investments are delivering real efficiencies across content production and decision‑making.
Martech leaders report significant or moderate gen AI improvements — content ideation/production 74%, data-driven decisions 73%, non-creative content generation 73%, productivity 71%, info access 71%, CX/revenue/innovation 70%
50%
of martech leaders are already using agentic or generative AI for journey design and omnichannel activation to achieve personalization at scale.
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Section 3

Driving Impact with Unified Workflows

High‑velocity, data‑driven campaigns require breaking down technology infrastructure silos, aligning leadership with day‑to‑day practitioners, and preparing workers for high‑impact AI use cases. Only then can brands fully leverage agentic AI to accelerate delivery, amplify output, and drive business ROI.

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Martech leaders believe agentic AI will reshape workflows, from cross‑system orchestration to creative thinking.
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Martech expectations for agentic AI in 18 months — coordinate enterprise systems 64%, automate customer service 61%, create content 49%, campaign orchestration 49%
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Agentic AI org-wide deployment remains limited — knowledge management 29%, brand discovery 22%, content creation 17%, personalization 16%, creative tasks 14%
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Grouped bar chart comparing generative vs. agentic AI foundation milestones: shared data platforms 72%/44%, system connectivity 71%/37%, data governance 67%/45%, AI skills training 50%/32%, ROI measurement frameworks 39%/27%
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Misalignment is a clear hindrance to setting effective AI strategy and prevents brands from capitalizing on their AI investments.
21% of martech leaders report that executives and practitioners at their organization are very aligned on AI strategy.
47% of martech leaders say that executives and practitioners at their organization are somewhat aligned.
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Martech leaders report a range of challenges deploying agentic AI:

70%

Unclear ROI or business case

68%

Talent and skill gaps

40%

Technology infrastructure limitations such as legacy systems, vendor lock‑in, and compatibility

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Section 4

The Bottom Line for Martech Leaders

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The path forward requires a strategic move from AI experimentation to customer experience orchestration.
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Martech leaders who connect data, content creation, and workflows will turn AI investments into real operational value. Here are the top three action items for you and your marketing and IT teams:
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Unify data to unlock AI’s potential.

Address data fragmentation by investing in unified customer data platforms and governance. These provide the foundation AI needs to deliver the experiences customers expect.

Scale content across workflows and systems.

Build on generative AI’s gains by extending cross‑system connectivity and investing in foundational tools that enable agentic AI.

Align strategy to accelerate agentic AI.

Before scaling agentic AI, identify high‑value use cases, align leadership and teams around them, and define clear success metrics.

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View more insights from the 2026 AI and Digital Trends report.

Learn more

Appendix

Research Methodology

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For Adobe’s 16th annual AI and Digital Trends research, Oxford Economics, in partnership with Adobe, conducted global surveys of 3,000 executives and practitioners and 4,000 customers to better understand how organizations are leveraging AI to capture customer interest, build brand loyalty, and augment customer experience (CX) workflows — and how customers are responding to these changes. The surveys were fielded online and via computer‑assisted telephonic interviewing (CATI) from October through November 2025.

“Martech” refers to a global set of marketing team leads, managers, directors, VPs, SVPs, and C‑suite leaders. This group makes up 31% of business survey respondents and represents a wide range of industries and business sizes.

View the 2026 AI and Digital Trends report for more on the full research methodology.

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Title
Explore the AI trends reshaping martech priorities.
cardDate
2026-06-03
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CardDescription
Learn how martech leaders are unifying data, scaling content, and aligning workflows to prepare for agentic AI.
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caas:content-type/guide, caas:topic/thought-leadership, caas:topic/digital-trends