Scott Brinker

It’s almost here! We’re launching our in-depth Martech for 2026 report on December 2, and you can be among the first to see it. Simply sign up for our Martech for 2026 webinar, and you’ll get the full report the instant it’s released — along with our scintillating repartee of key findings that you can catch live or on-demand. To share a sneak preview with you, we’ll affirm: AI agents in marketing are real. 90.3% …

Buyer-side agents are the real disruption (a sneak preview of our Martech for 2026 report) Continue Reading »

Ah, the Hype Cycle. No other curve is both so revered and reviled. When it comes to generative AI’s Hype Cycle, especially its application in marketing, there are three things we need to acknowledge: First, “gen AI” is not a single technology moving along the Hype Cycle. Is it at the peak of inflated expectations? The trough of disillusionment? The slope of enlightenment? The answer is: all of the above. Different gen AI applications and …

The first generation of gen AI use cases in marketing are streaking through the Hype Cycle Continue Reading »

Are you feeling the vibes yet? “Vibe” has become the latest AI buzzword. Even more than “agentic,” which is saying a lot. While both terms are widely open to interpretation — and therefore ripe to be appropriated by anyone selling anything — vibe stands out for sheer weirdness. The term originated with a post by Andrej Karpathy, one of the original co-founders of OpenAI, who described vibe coding as a new way of rapidly building …

1967 was the Summer of Love; we will remember 2025 as the Summer of Vibes Continue Reading »

tl;dr The martech landscape grew again since last year, up 9% to 15,384 solutions. While new AI natives continue to blossom, the previous generation is consolidating more. There’s also an exploding “hypertail” of custom software. We cover all of this and more in our new State of Martech 2025 report (free and ungated). Over 15 years ago, I tossed a bunch of martech logos on a slide to present the Rise of the Marketing Technologist …

2025 Marketing Technology Landscape Supergraphic: 100X growth since 2011, but now with AI… Continue Reading »

This is a short excerpt of data from The State of Martech 2025 report that will be released on May 6, 2025. You can get the complete 100+ page report and access to an extended keynote presentation of our research by registering for free for #MartechDay. It’s no surprise that stand-alone AI assistants, such as ChatGPT, Claude, and Gemini have become ubiquitous. In our study of 96 martech and marketing operations leaders, 87.5% reported these …

Beyond AI assistants: how AI is being more deeply embedded in marketing and martech stacks Continue Reading »

For years, martech was divided into systems of record and systems of engagement. Systems of record stored the “master” versions of data. CRMs and CDPs for customer data. PIM for product data. DAM for brand assets. ERP for inventory data. (I know, there’s a ton of acronyms in this piece, almost to the point of parody. Click on the image above for a larger-scale version to read the Acronymn Decoder Ring on the right.) Systems …

Meet the new martech stack: systems of context and systems of truth Continue Reading »