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Gartner 2026 CMO Spend Survey.
Gartner surveyed 401 marketing leaders in North America and Europe. Budgets are roughly flat as a share of revenue, AI now takes a significant part of them, but most teams lack the processes to scale it.
By Gartner · May 11, 2026
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Gartner surveyed 401 marketing leaders in North America and Europe. Budgets are roughly flat as a share of revenue, AI now takes a significant part of them, but most teams lack the processes to scale it.
Key findings
- Marketing budgets average 7.8% of company revenue in 2026, up slightly from 7.7% in 2025.
- CMOs allocate an average of 15.3% of their marketing budget to AI.
- Only 30% report mature AI readiness, and 70% say their marketing processes are not mature enough to scale AI.
- AI-ready organisations put 21.3% of budget into AI and spend 8.9% of revenue on marketing.
- 56% say their budget is not enough to deliver their 2026 strategy.
Why it matters
It gives CMOs a benchmark for AI's share of the marketing budget and a case for investing in processes before tools.
About this report
Published by Gartner, 2026-05-11. Paid report. Get the full report from Gartner