Gartner Marketing Symposium/Xpo: Day 1 Highlights

We are bringing you news and highlights from Day 1 of the 2025 Gartner Marketing Symposium/Xpo, taking place this week in London. Below is a collection of the key announcements and insights coming out of the conference. 

On Day 1, we are highlighting key takeaways from the Gartner Opening Keynote, findings from the 2025 CMO Spend Survey and what AI means for customers of the future.

• Gartner Survey Reveals "Market Shaping" CMOs Are Eight Times More LIkely to Succeed in Their Role
• Gartner 2025 CMO Spend Survey Reveals Marketing Budgets Have Flatlined at 7.7% of Overall Company Revenue

Presented by Alex De Fursac Gash, Vice President Analyst, Gartner, and Kristina LaRocca-Cerrone, Vice President, Advisory, Gartner

Marketing leaders face extraordinary expectations from the enterprise, customers, and their teams. These have been driven up by increased demands for AI adoption, product innovation, increasingly complex buying journeys and shifting customer preferences. In the Opening Keynote at Gartner Marketing Symposium/Xpo, Alex De Fursac Gash, Vice President Analyst at Gartner, and Kristina LaRocca-Cerrone, Vice President, Advisory at Gartner, discussed how CMOs can navigate this new landscape.

• “Marketing leaders face immense pressure to work harder, deliver faster, to use less but deliver more. They’re working in an environment of constant change, endless new demands and cross-functional complexity.”

• “Continuing to walk the same path of the ‘typical’ marketing journey rapidly diminishes the probability of success. Adaptability is key - in fact, failure to adapt is a top reason CEOs say they’ve parted ways with their CMO.”

• “A key reason why many CMOs struggle to implement their long-term plans is strategic dysfunction: marketing and enterprise objectives that are numerous and conflicting.”

• “A recent Gartner survey revealed that many CMOs fit one of two profiles: enterprise operators or market shapers. While enterprise operators focus inwards, market shapers have deep customer and marketing insight.  Being seen as a market shaper makes a CMO eight times more likely to succeed in their role.”

• “Market shaping CMOs focus on four things:

  • Enterprise leadership commitments to the customer
  • Enterprise understanding of and response to disruptive forces
  • Customer preferences for your organization over the competition
  • Future product strategy by helping product leaders understand unmet customer needs.”

Journalists can receive additional information and/or request an interview with Alex De Fursac Gash or Kristina LaRocca-Cerrone by contacting Jordan Brackenbury at jordan.brackenbury@gartner.com.

Presented by Ewan McIntyre, Vice President Analyst at Gartner

Following years of decline, marketing budgets have flatlined. Despite this, CMOs are driving productivity in order to squeeze more from their budgets. In his session at Gartner Marketing Symposium/Xpo, Ewan McIntyre, Vice President Analyst at Gartner, discussed the latest findings from the 2025 CMO Spend Survey, including key budget takeaways, and what CMOs can do to navigate 2025’s turbulent landscape.

• “The state of marketing budgets in 2025: Marketing budgets have flatlined at 7.7% of overall company revenue.Stagnant budgets pose a challenge for CMOs who are being tasked to do more with less.”

• “CMOs are experiencing a prolonged ‘era of less’: five years before the pandemic, average marketing budgets were 11.2% of company revenue. In the five years after the pandemic, this has fallen to just 8.1%.”

• “The 7.7% mean average only tells part of the story: half of CMOs reported budgets of 6% of revenue or less.”

• “Despite flat budgets, there’s a meaningful shift toward productivity. In 2025, 61% of CMOs say that marketing is seen as a profit center, compared to just 54% in the 2024 survey.”

• “Marketing is entering a new era of productivity. CMOs are turning to data, and AI in order to unlock new efficiencies. The top productivity drivers for CMOs include:

  • Leveraging data, analytics and measurement to optimize performance
  • Using technology such as AI to automate key tasks
  • Integrating advanced technologies, including AI, to enhance efficiency."

Journalists can receive additional information and/or request an interview with Ewan McIntyre by contacting Jordan Brackenbury at jordan.brackenbury@gartner.com. 

Learn more in the Gartner press release "Gartner CMO Survey Reveals Marketing Budgets Have Flatlined at 7.7% of Overall Company Revenue."

Presented by Lizzy Foo Kune, Distinguished Vice President Analyst, Gartner

By 2035, the rise of non-human customers will transform the landscape of customer interactions. In her session, Lizzy Foo Kune, Distinguished Vice President Analyst at Gartner, discussed how CMOs can adapt to these changes, balance human connection with automation, and uncover strategies to ensure no customer is left behind in this brave new world.

• “CMOs face three key issues when it comes to AI: 

  • Human customers are open to using AI, but within limits

  • Customers of the future may not be human

  • Like it or not, marketers must cater to both.”

• “According to Gartner research, 58% of consumers agree that they would prefer to buy from businesses that don’t use generative AI in their messaging and communications.”

• “In contrast, according to the 2025 Gartner CMO Spend Survey, 88% of CMOs believe GenAI will have a positive impact on their marketing investment and strategy.”

• “As customers become more comfortable using AI, they’ll shift from seeing it as a tool to seeing AI as a teammate. CMOs need to get ready for the rise of intelligent, adaptable, nonhuman customers.”

• “Future customers will be humans, machines and everything in between. To adapt, CMOs must strategically cater to both human and non-human customers, acknowledging the shift from AI as a mere tool to an AI teammate capable of increasing autonomy and collaborative capabilities.”

Journalists can receive additional information and/or request an interview with Lizzy Foo Kune by contacting Jordan Brackenbury at jordan.brackenbury@gartner.com.