A May 2026 Gartner survey found that marketing leaders expect AI-driven automation of marketing work to more than double, rising from 16 percent in 2026 to 36 percent by 2028. The data, published May 11, 2026, reflects accelerating investment in AI-powered tools across marketing operations, campaign management, personalization, and content production functions at enterprise companies.
The global AI marketing market was valued at $47.32 billion in 2026 and is projected to reach $107.5 billion by 2028, growing at an annual rate of 36.6 percent. Agentic AI, in which AI systems take autonomous actions to complete tasks rather than simply providing recommendations, is expected to reach $201.9 billion in spending across all enterprise functions in 2026. Gartner projects that 40 percent of enterprise applications will embed AI agents by the end of 2026.
Microsoft's AI CEO publicly stated in May 2026 that marketing functions could be largely automated within 18 months, a projection that generated broad discussion among enterprise marketing practitioners about which roles and workflows face the highest displacement risk in the near term.
Platforms such as HubSpot, Salesforce, and Adobe have each accelerated AI feature releases in 2026, competing to capture enterprise budget shifting from manual marketing operations toward AI-assisted systems. The rate of adoption varies significantly by company size, with large enterprises capturing most of the productivity gains from AI marketing automation compared with mid-market companies still in early deployment stages.
Source: Gartner -- https://www.gartner.com/en/newsroom/press-releases/2026-05-11-gartner-survey-reveals-marketing-leaders-expect-ai-automation-of-marketing-work-to-double-to-36-percent-by-2028