AI's Growing Influence on Marketing: Teams Transition from Experimentation to Full Integration NetApp®, known for Intelligent Data Infrastructure, announced its involvement in a recent marketing research study by Callan Consulting, a Silicon Valley-based executive marketing advisory firm. Alongside 18 B2B and B2C technology companies, NetApp is part of an effort to explore how AI is transforming contemporary marketing organizations, demonstrating a clear progression from initial experimentation to enterprise-wide embedded use. The State of AI in Technology Marketing 2026 report, developed from comprehensive interviews with CMOs and senior marketing executives at the participating firms, reveals that AI is rapidly becoming a fundamental part of marketing teams and workflows—spanning content creation, research, campaign optimization, and analytics. As AI use deepens, priorities such as data quality, accessibility, and governance have come to the forefront. “AI doesn’t change what great marketing aims to achieve; it simply removes reasons for not accomplishing it, ” stated Gabie Boko, Chief Marketing Officer at NetApp. “With clean, accessible, and trusted data, teams shift from managing chaos to making informed decisions. That’s when marketing efforts truly propel the business forward. ” Marketing Technology News: MarTech Interview With Fredrik Skantze, CEO and Co-founder of Funnel The report underscores several significant developments since Callan Consulting’s previous study in November 2024, including the rise of “Born in AI” companies that established marketing departments around generative AI from inception, the swift growth of AI applications throughout the marketing lifecycle, and the escalating relevance of emerging disciplines like Answer Engine Optimization (AEO) as customers increasingly engage with AI-powered buying interfaces. Despite strong enthusiasm for AI adoption, marketing leaders emphasize ongoing challenges. Many noted difficulty in measuring AI’s direct return on investment, with benefits more often observed anecdotally in terms of speed, output, and cost savings rather than through conventional performance metrics.

The research also stresses the risk of excessive reliance on AI tools and the critical need for human oversight, governance, and input as AI-generated content becomes more widespread. “What has shifted most dramatically since our last study is that AI is no longer seen as a supplementary or side project, ” explained Ed Callan, CEO of Callan Consulting. “Marketing leaders now regard AI as a baseline expectation, on par with analytics or marketing automation. Concurrently, we’re noticing signs of overdependence on these tools, prompting leadership to reaffirm that human judgment, creativity, and discipline remain vital. ” Looking forward, marketing executives anticipate deeper AI integration within the next year, including expanded use of agentic AI, consolidation of marketing technology platforms, and ongoing evolution in how brands engage both human buyers and AI-driven decision-making systems. “In today’s AI-driven content environment, marketers find it challenging to achieve visibility and differentiation. With answer engines rapidly becoming the new mode of search, there is a chance to restore content’s strategic role—delivering intelligent content that is structured, precise, trustworthy, and accessible to all, ” said Jen Jones, CMO of Siteimprove and a report contributor. “Success in traditional SEO remains essential, but AEO represents an expanded discipline that goes beyond rankings to optimize how content performs in answer engines. ”