From Martech Stacks To AI Ecosystems For Modern Marketing

The martech stack used to feel complicated. Then generative AI showed up and turned “complicated” into “constantly changing.” We sit down with Scott Brinker, the analyst behind ChiefMartec, to unpack what’s really happening as marketing teams move from a familiar martech stack to a broader AI ecosystem filled with new tools, copilots, and early stage agents layered on top of the systems we already depend on.

We get concrete about what still anchors modern marketing technology: a system of record for customer data (CRM in many B2B orgs and often a CDP in B2C), a platform for orchestration through marketing automation and messaging, and a web layer like a CMS or DXP. From there, the stack diversifies fast based on industry, maturity, and team bandwidth, which explains why some organizations can experiment aggressively while smaller teams are still holding marketing ops together with sheer willpower.

From a leadership angle, Scott makes a blunt point: you can’t automate what you can’t define. If you want AI automation that protects authentic brand voice, you need clear guardrails, documented standards, and real ownership, not vague “it’s in our culture” assumptions. We also look ahead to a shift that may surprise a lot of marketers, AI used by customers, including AI search behavior and the possibility of inbox agents that reshape email marketing and customer engagement.

If you care about AI strategy, marketing operations, martech governance, and what skills the next generation of marketing leaders will need, this conversation will sharpen how you think. Subscribe, share this with a marketing leader who’s drowning in tools, and leave a review with the biggest AI change you’re navigating right now.

Transcript

Meet Scott Brinker

SPEAKER_00 0:01

Hey everybody, super excited for this chat today with an industry legend, Scott Brinker, the voice behind Chief Martech, uh helping define how modern marketing operates in a world that's defined by AI these days. Scott, how are you?

SPEAKER_01 0:17

I am good. Thank you so much for having me as a guest.

SPEAKER_00 0:20

Well, great to be here. Special Boston edition here on this dreary Boston Spring Day. Um, how do you describe your work at Chief Martech and your body of work and uh yourself lately?

SPEAKER_01 0:32

Yeah, I mean, I would say I started out as an armchair analyst, uh, you know, uh, but really the as an advocate for this intersection between marketing and technology for goodness, like 20 years now. Um but uh yeah, actually, uh as of the start of this year, I've actually made this my full-time vocation. So I think I've moved from armchair analyst to, dare I say, just analyst uh of the Martech world.

The Shift To AI Ecosystems

SPEAKER_00 0:58

Fantastic. Congratulations on that. And we'll dive right into the topic. De jour, of course. You know, we've gone from Martech stacks, uh, which you have documented uh better than anyone in the industry uh as an analyst, to AI ecosystems. Uh, what is this shift? What's happening? Uh, what's uh maybe happening that leaders aren't fully grasping right now?

The Core Systems Still Matter

SPEAKER_01 1:21

Well, I would say one thing is, as is often the case in marketing's evolution, we seem to keep adding new things without necessarily getting rid of anything we had before, you know, both in our responsibility set, but even today in the tech stack. I mean, the truth is that, you know, most people's Martech stack and the core applications and platforms that they've had for the past few years, most of them still have all of those in place, you know. But now they've layered on top of that, you know, a bunch of new like AI specialist tools. They're certainly using Quad or Gemini or ChatGPT. You know, there's agents that, you know, either people are buying or they're starting to build themselves. Um, and so I I actually think at the moment the tech stack is probably its messiest it's been in a while, which is saying something. Um, you know, but I think I'm a glass half full sort of person. I just think this is like we're going through a bit of a liminal period here where marketing and then as a result of it, like the operations and technology infrastructure supported. It's just it is going to change, but the stuff doesn't change overnight. It's evolutionary. And we're in uh, I don't know, what's the thing with the caterpillar and the butterfly solace? You know, we're in that sort of like stage where we're being transformed into something very different, but it's kind of the soup at the moment.

SPEAKER_00 2:47

And you're infamous for your Martech landscape, which uh all marketeers are familiar with, overwhelmed by. Um, is it possible even to define what a modern Martex stack looks like in 2026 today?

SPEAKER_01 3:02

I mean, you know, there there tend to be certain like just foundational pieces that have been around for a while. Almost every business has, right? Like, all right, we've got something that is the system of record for the core customer data. You know, in B2B, that tends to be a little bit more CRM. In B2C, it tends to be a little bit more of like, you know, the CVPs, uh, you know, customer data platforms. We almost all have some sort of system that we're using to orchestrate the uh things like the email campaigns and increasingly like you know, messaging campaigns, classic marketing automation or customer engagement platform. We almost all have something that we're running as like our web platform, whether you call it a CMS or DXP or something like that. But once you get beyond that sort of core, uh, you know, uh triumphant of um, you know, those three systems, you just get into a whole bot of variation, partly based on like the industry and like you know what they're trying to do, their customers are, partly based on their maturity, you know, the size of the team, you know. Um, there are things that more mature and more sophisticated teams, particularly in things like the tech industry or some of these things, like some amazing stuff, you know. But for say a smaller group that's you know got one person like holding together the marketing operations team with, you know, uh rubber bands, the chewing gun, um, yeah, like they're not that they don't have the time or the bandwidth to be able to do some of that.

How GenAI Changes Daily Work

SPEAKER_00 4:29

Yeah, great point. And let's talk about the people side of the equation. Um how, in your opinion, your unique point of view is Gen AI, AI tools, how are they changing the role of the marketer day to day generally?

SPEAKER_01 4:44

I mean, for those who are leaning into it, um it's it's it's an incredible acceptance for a lot of things, you know, that people want. Like once you once you become familiar with these tools and how to do it, again, the things that marketers marketers have both like you know, the the the idea and then the ability to execute on it. Um, and one of the things I've always admired about marketers is the class is they are a font of phenomenal ideas. So, you know, that's that's one of the things I just love about marketing. Um but the execution work and just the sheer time and materials to execute those ideas is almost always where the bottleneck has been. And in a lot of things now, those who people who are really starting to get good at mastering a lot of these AI tools are just able to shrink, you know, the time and effort required on the execution. So they get to do a lot more ideas. Um that's great for the people who are leaning into that. You know, there's still a lot that to be honest. I mean, this is human behavior, it just changes hard. A lot of people tend to like be reluctant to like, wait, I've always done it this way, and I'm really good at doing it this way. Now I have to step away from that. I have a lot of empathy for that. Um, but yeah, it's one of the reasons why you have you have the marketers who are posting on LinkedIn who are like the one, oh yeah, no one got this, I've got five skill files, I've got 20 agents running all this, and then you've got the vast majority of other people who are like, Okay, well, this is interesting, but I'm gonna need to take this a little step at a time. I mean, you tell me, but I kind of feel like we don't really even have any precedent uh for having this much change thrown at us at such velocity in such a compressed time period that um I don't know. I it's I I think I don't know it sounds trivial to say it, but it's almost like that the the change management uh of this feels like the the hardest mountain to climb.

Budget Discipline Meets AI Experimentation

SPEAKER_00 6:44

Indeed, yes. I feel like Charlie and the chocolate factory every day, just with all the new toys and shiny things. Um, and back to the enterprise where you know large businesses are looking, evaluating, investing in tools. Do you think they're overinvesting in some areas or maybe underinvesting in certain areas? Do you have a view of where the dollars are going now?

SPEAKER_01 7:08

I mean, I would say in the pan, like in the few years around the pandemic and after that, uh, there was definitely overinvestment because people were in a little bit of a panic mode of like, hey, listen, that 10-year digital transformation project we wanted to do, okay, kind of have to like uh, you know, do that more in like 10 days. Uh it was actually pretty remarkable how quickly so many businesses did actually adapt in that, you know, environment under that pressure. But they did so in a very often chaotic way. And so, you know, as we sort of came out on the other side of that in 2022 and 2023, people were like, oh, all right, we could probably use some spring cleaning and some rationalization of this tech stack. And I sort of feel like over the past couple years, for the core Martech stack, most companies have gotten a lot more disciplined about like, okay, do we really need this tool? You know, is it where are we getting value? Are these things redundant? But of course, just as we sort of get our arms around, you know, the practices for rationalizing that, you know, this whole AI thing, very often that is presented top down from like, you know, the C-suite or the board of like, you just need to do more with AI. We don't know what you would do with AI, but more with AI. Um, combined with the fact that there are actually a lot of legitimate innovations, you know, that are happening out here on the edge, is I think while we've been rationalizing the stack as we used to know it, we're now in a bit of a mode of, you know, adding a lot more in this, again, sort of experimental exploratory stage of figuring out like, okay, what does this make possible? What's actually going to work? So I don't actually think it's a bad thing. I think it probably is what we should be doing at this point in time. But, you know, you could probably like we will probably look back at this period a couple of years from now and be like, well, maybe we're kind of overinvested in, you know, some of these other things that we ultimately didn't need.

Automation Guardrails And Brand Voice

SPEAKER_00 9:02

For sure. Certainly, my CFO, otherwise known as my wife, isn't happy with the amount of tokens and apps I'm subscribing to and uh and using on a daily basis, but that's just me. Uh under overinvesting perhaps in the latest shiny tools. Um so when you have these tools, how do you balance automation with maintaining uh, I guess, the authentic brand voice and the creativity that everyone wants to aspire to? I, for example, am busy today, be back-to-back meetings, so I have Claude out there posting and engaging on my behalf for the day, so I don't uh miss out, FOMO, on some of the key topics. But what's your uh perspective on that balance within you know the enterprise?

SPEAKER_01 9:47

Yeah, it's interesting. We've had a lot of conversations with people about this these past few months, because uh one of the things it's realized like is to automate something, you really have to be able to define it. You have to be able to say, like, okay, these are the rules. This is my brand voice, you know, these are the guardrails. Uh, and the truth is, while lots of business have these things, they don't actually have it well defined on paper or, you know, the digital equivalent of that. You know, it's it's sort of like, oh, well, this is, you know, knowledge that are in people's head, and it's sort of like learn behaviors, and you know, it's an amorphous part of the culture, which hey, when the humans were just doing all of that, that kind of worked. But now that we're in a mode where like, okay, we actually do want to turn some of these things over to AI and agents and automation to be able just again accelerate it and you know get further reach. Yeah, that's part of what people are realizing. It's like, well, okay, well, wait a second, how do we define that? And so I think right now that is the um that's the gate. Uh is people who haven't actually uh materially defined, you know, what those things are is they're they have to start by figuring that out. Otherwise, you're sort of like just letting things run, you know. What's instead of buyer beware, it's like you know, operator beware, like you know, you know, magic eight ball. What's your what you're gonna get?

SPEAKER_00 11:15

Yeah, do you think this idea of truly autonomous marketing systems, you know, autonomous agents are are practical or is this still overhyped for the next year or two?

SPEAKER_01 11:26

A little bit of both. I think again, those people who know how to configure uh and monitor and like really very well define, you know, and provide the right sort of context to these things, you know, there are people who are getting success with that. But I think at the moment they are in the minority because again, it's just a lot of work, it's a lot of structure that marketing hasn't technically needed to do what it's been doing. Um, and so for those people, I you know, I mean, I think that's where people fall prey to the height where they're like, oh yeah, great. Well, I just plug in the agent and I'll just figure that all out. And it's like, well, no, actually, the agent isn't just going to figure that all out. Um, you know, but I think the underlying technology and where we can get with this, like these bottlenecks of us getting better at defining uh how we want automations and AI to run, I think this is a learnable skill. You know, I do think we we we are progressing in the right direction on that. But I think it's also fair to say, yeah, for most, for the majority, it's gonna take a few years. It's it's a lot of change.

Skills For The Next Marketing Leaders

SPEAKER_00 12:34

Yeah, yeah, a lot of change for sure. And speaking up uh of change and the next generation of marketing leadership to kind of manage through that change, what are some of the skills do you think will come in handy? We went through periods where, yeah, marketing, they should be data scientists and have, you know, degrees in data science. Other times, you know, it's been all the creative and creativity. And, you know, we go back and forth, but what what are some of the key skills do you think that marketing leaders need to uh look out for?

SPEAKER_01 13:05

I mean, I still think from a leadership perspective, you know, it's the human dimension to this, you know, both for like really having the empathy and knowing and meeting and understanding your customer, not just looking at their digital body language, but like actually beating your real customer. Um, you know, I think it's how you develop and organize a team, how you help a team through this incredible change management uh period. Uh, and then it's the fact that, like, you know, marketing doesn't happen in a vacuum. You know, it is part of a larger team and a larger organization. And I think those leaders who become particularly good at the way in which they're able to align and collaborate and coordinate, you know, with their peers, whether it's, you know, in the product and ops or, you know, the sales or finance, um, I mean, these are skills that AI does not magically replace, thank goodness. Um, you know, and then I think at the next level down, it's still a little bit of like a team dynamic. I think you want someone on the marketing team who really does understand the technology here, you know, the sort of Martech marketing ops role. It's more valuable, not less valuable, you know, as we bring more of these things to play. Um, I think having someone who is very strong on the data and analytics side is is really important because again, you can ask AI all sorts of questions that can do so all sorts of amazing things, but it's not perfectly reliable either. And so, like when you have someone who has the domain expertise or the knowledge and they're doing this, this is great because they can get a lot of volume and acceleration out of it, but they also have the the experience and the wisdom to be able to say, like, oh wait, hang on, this one doesn't make sense. Let's oh yeah, no, I'm sorry. Let me regain, you know. I mean, um, you know, that's very valuable. And then on the creative side, um, again, the thing that is so exciting about AI is if you have an idea of what you want to bring to life, the ability to use these AI tools to very rapidly even just bring a prototype of, yeah, let's actually see what that would look like. And like, oh yeah, let's let's have a walkthrough video of how that would be, even if there's, you know, that's not the production versions you're going to send out to the world. Just this ability to take ideas from something amorphous in your brain to something concrete that you can share with people and get feedback on have all, I think that's great. But it's to me still starts uh with the creative process uh, you know, of those ideas and a lot of originality that can come from that.

SPEAKER_00 15:39

Indeed. Yeah, just one insight. I I've been using ChatGPT and Nana Banana to do really great complex infographics. Just in the last weeks or month or two, I'd say they've gotten really good to the point of wow, it would have taken a professional designer many hours, thousands of dollars to create that infographic and no spelling mistakes, right on visuals, and something has changed in that world, in the design world, where I'm like, wow, this is getting very good. But and there are just dozens more examples.

SPEAKER_01 16:11

And it's crazy. I mean, the speed at which these models keep getting better. Um, you know, I don't know, there was uh rumors floating around here uh, you know, this past week about uh the next generation model from uh Anthropic, uh, which I think is the people referring to as mythos, you know, and who knows what this is actually gonna be. But you know, I'm sort of the hints are like, oh, you think quad is good today. What do you see what this is? It's really it is I I I find I am constantly in a state of like two competing emotions of just kid in the candy store excitement, you know, and uh just kid in a darkened room, terrified, you know, of what's around the corner here, and like, yeah, it's some combination of those two.

When Customers Use AI Agents

SPEAKER_00 16:58

Indeed. Is there a particular trend in Martech or AI you think will surprise us over the next 12 to 18 months? I mean, beyond better, faster, cheaper, uh, the usual kind of things. Uh, any surprises from your point of view?

SPEAKER_01 17:14

I mean, to me, the most interesting thing that is starting to emerge, um, and I think it's gonna grow a lot, is not AI that is being used by marketers. It's AI being used by customers, by consumers. Um, I mean, we already saw this shift, you know, you know, from the old uh, you know, Google experience, search experience to now AI assistance, and even just that, how disruptive that has been. Well, all right, I say disruptive to marketers, it's been disruptive because like all the things we've instrumented around, you know, like the Google search engine funnel and whatnot. Now we get it's it's something different, and we don't have as much visibility and our mechanisms for that change. So for marketing, it's you know been disruptive for customers though, for consumers though, like, oh wow, I used to have to go through all these various lines and figure out what was real and not and click through. Oh, now just ask this in questions and then gives me answers. I asked follow-up. This is friggin' wonderful. I think we're gonna see a lot more of these sorts of things. Like one I've been looking at, you know, that we're just starting to see emerge is this idea of like everybody is an inbox, everybody has an absolute mess of stuff that floods at them. Uh, spam filtering alone is not a sufficient thing here. You know, it seems like it's just a matter of time here before, like, okay, no, email actually is going to be an agent, and the agent is going to manage this inbox for you. And in many ways, I think just like uh, you know, the AI assistants, the way they disrupted search, I think they will disrupt email marketing the way that's practice. But I'm not sure that's a bad thing. Because one of the things is, you know, the problem with email is it's the tragedy of the commons. You know, marketers who do really good email are actually penalized for the fact that there's all these other people out there using email and they're just absolutely terrible at it, and it's so easy to get lost in that noise. You know, I think actually a little agentic mediation, you know, in this actually might end up making email a more effective channel, you know, for marketers who are doing it well and have true engagement with their customers. But I don't know. So those those are the sorts of things where I'm waiting to see what's going to be surprising about how consumers and customers start to leverage AI and what that ultimately does to shift the way marketing has to work.

What Content Channels Work Now

SPEAKER_00 19:34

Yeah, wonderful insight. And I think it's there's that middle ground of prosumers or you know, solopreneurs like myself or small businesses that are getting these tools and doing things that would have been impossible for a small business, a micro business to do. And that's just really exciting to see as well. Um, in terms of your own content, I mean, you're everywhere. Um, any insight into what's working well for you in terms of channels or in terms of formats? Me, for example, I've really long-form video has been just awesome on YouTube, as well as long-form blogging. Uh, and in my newsletter has been great. But what's what's working for you and and others that you you work with?

SPEAKER_01 20:16

Yeah, well, I would say at the moment, I've really been the newsletter that I uh sort of restarted here at the beginning of the year. Uh, I'm using Beehive as the uh platform for that. I've been happy with them. Um I would say it's working at two levels. One, I'm getting back to the roots of what I actually love to do. I actually like long-form writing. Uh it's one of my one of my joys. Uh, I I do not outsource that uh because I love it. Um but also it seems to be where I'm getting the greatest engagement. And the best way for me to actually reach my audience in a more predictable way. Um, boy, the the the shifts that have happened in the LinkedIn algorithms, you know, over the past year or so. Um, you know, again, I'm sure there's method to the madness there, but um, yeah, what used to be a very reliable way of communicating to an audience now feels that again, it's a little bit of this magic eight ball of yeah, who's gonna see that and when? Um uh so I don't know. That's sort of where I am. I would love to get more into the video side. I I do not do much of that, but you're uh the experience you're having is what I hear from a lot of folks, you know, that video has really become one of, if not the most predominant channel for them, you know, to effectively engage.

Where To Follow Scott And Closing

SPEAKER_00 21:34

Yeah, I know it's been great. This will be out on YouTube, on uh X, on uh LinkedIn Live. And so uh I look forward forward to sharing that. Finally, what where can people reach you? And what sort of consulting are you doing these days? What what's your elevator pitch, I guess, as it were?

SPEAKER_01 21:52

Uh all right, so uh my website and you can get my newsletter on there too, is ChiefMartech.com, and that's ChiefMartech. Uh without an H at the end. We could have a discussion on that framing place. Was it brilliant or terrible? And yeah, essentially my elevator pitch is I am a Martech analyst and advisor. You know, from an analyst perspective, it's mostly about these patterns of helping the collective Martech industry just understand like what's changing, how do you take advantage of it? How do you move forward? And then I also do some advisory work primarily with other Martech companies in helping them sort of figure out how do they navigate uh that future forward.

SPEAKER_00 22:34

Wow, what a fun job. Uh, thanks so much for catching up. Good to see you. And here's to uh summer in Boston, which hopefully is not only another few weeks away. And thanks for uh joining, Scott. Thanks so much for having me, Evan. Have a good one. Thank you. And thanks everyone for listening, watching. Also, check out our TV show, techimpact.tv on Bloomberg Television and Fox Business. Thanks, everyone. Thanks, Scott. Bye.