One of the things we look forward to on MarTech Day every year is the introduction of the latest martech landscape graphic and the headcount of tools in the market. For the record, this year’s landscape counts 15,384 tools.
But if you heard Scott Brinker, the editor of Chiefmartec.com, at the Spring 2025 MarTech Conference in March, you heard his excitement about the speed with which AI advances are hitting the market and what it means for the sector.
Given all that’s happening with AI and more, it’s no surprise that the 2025 State of Martech report, from Brinker and Frans Riemersma (a MarTech contributor) of Martech Tribe, is 132 pages and nearly 26,000 words (none written by AI, Brinker assures us).
For marketing and marketing operations leaders, the report is more than a census of tools and a list of how AI is changing your world.
Here are 10 insights from the report that leaders can’t afford to ignore.
Dig deeper: These are the challenges and barriers impacting your martech stack
1. Your team needs to become increasingly technical
If your marketing team finds itself increasingly discussing data and infrastructure, it’s not alone. Whether these discussions involve marketers, marketing ops or IT, they indicate the need for marketers to possess greater technical skills. The takeaway: Investing in data literacy and technical training for marketing teams is crucial for future success.
2. Prioritize open and interoperable martech platforms
You’re facing a future that involves customers’ or third-party agents acting within customer journeys. That’s one reason your platforms need to be more open and interoperable.
However, difficulties integrating AI tools are often due to closed or outdated martech platforms, highlighting the critical importance of openness for flexibility. If you’re evaluating or selecting new martech tools, prioritize platforms offering robust API integrations and openness. (We also saw the problems of data integration in our 2025 State of Your Stack Survey.)
3. Integrate your martech stack with a cloud data warehouse or data lakehouse
Most (56.2%) of those surveyed for the State of Martech 2025 report integrated their martech stack with a cloud data warehouse or data lake. These data platforms are a potential universal data layer and the future source of truth for businesses. They provide a strong data foundation and easier access to comprehensive data for marketing teams.
4. Process data and run AI applications directly on the cloud data layer
The majority of those with integrated data warehouses and lakehouses run custom and/or commercial AI apps or agents directly on this data layer, the report found. This architectural approach leverages the centralized data store and enables AI to work with extensive data, enhancing its power.
5. AI will help you harness the power of unstructured data
AI, particularly LLMs, is effective at analyzing and extracting insights from unstructured data such as call recordings, meeting transcripts, emails and social media posts.
Marketing workflows are using LLM/agentic AI to summarize messages and content and personalize messages. You can leverage these capabilities to gain richer customer understanding and personalize communications.
Dig deeper: State of the Stack 2025: Homegrown martech surges as AI accelerates development
6. It’s time for new management strategies for complex, AI-driven stacks
The introduction of LLMs and autonomous AI agents transforms martech stacks from complicated (predictable) to complex (probabilistic).
Managing this complexity requires quite a different way of thinking, including:
- Embracing modular architectures.
- Enhancing “observability” (monitoring probabilistic outcomes).
- Engaging in safe-to-fail experiments.
- Instituting human-in-the-loop checkpoints.
- Building cross-functional “sense-maker” teams.
- Investing in data maturity.
- Promoting a culture of experimentation.
7. Shift your customer journeys from deterministic to probabilistic mapping
While traditional customer journey mapping was deterministic with predefined paths, AI enables probabilistic journey mapping.
Techniques like reinforcement learning let algorithms learn from data and recommend personalized journey paths. When done right, this results in more dynamic and effective customer engagement across the journey.
8. It’s time to reallocate resources to strategy and creative work
Historically, production and analysis have consumed a great deal of marketing’s resources. As AI automates more of these, teams can focus more on higher-value activities like strategy, broader customer experience strategy and identifying new engagement opportunities. As a leader, you should facilitate this shift to maximize your teams’ impact.
9. Increase the importance and scope of marketing ops and foster IT collaboration
While often underinvested, martech and marketing operations are becoming more critical due to the increased scope and complexity of managing the underlying technology. Closer collaboration with IT is also becoming essential as data and AI infrastructure extend beyond marketing. Invest in your marketing ops team and build strong partnerships with IT.
10. Cultivate a culture of speed, iteration and experimentation
Agile marketing methods, characterized by speed, iterative implementations and experimentation, are strongly correlated with AI success, according to the report.
The report also discusses “compound marketing,” a framework for leveraging AI in marketing programs and campaigns focusing on accelerating gains. Compound marketing is based on the principle of compound interest, where gains accumulate significantly over time by building upon previous gains.
In marketing, the idea is specifically about driving faster gains and accelerating the marketing cycle through agentic AI and iteration speed. As a leader, it’s crucial to promote a culture that embraces rapid iteration and experimentation to effectively leverage AI and accelerate gains.
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