CMO Council: Only 1 in 4 Marketing Leaders "Highly Advanced" in AI
New audit of 200+ marketing leaders reveals the uncomfortable truth: 37% are "challenged and lagging" in identifying, specifying, integrating, and deploying AI solutions. While 41% report "good traction," only 25% rate themselves highly advanced. The kicker: 71% say their first-party data capabilities are ineffective, and AI "exposes every structural weakness" in the martech stack.
Read on Business Insider →OpenAI Launches "Presence" — From Models to Enterprise Software
OpenAI is no longer just selling AI models. The new "Presence" product helps companies deploy AI agents by connecting them to internal data, policies, existing software, and workflows. It's designed for customer support, sales, billing, and IT service requests. OpenAI is already using it to run its own phone support. The move takes OpenAI from model provider to enterprise software competitor.
Read on Business Insider →Gartner: $234B of Enterprise Software at Risk from Agentic AI
Gartner forecasts 40% of enterprise applications will have AI agents embedded by year-end — and up to $234 billion in enterprise application spending (roughly 20% of SaaS) is at risk of "agency arbitrage" through 2030. The agent governance gap is now the biggest corporate risk. Translation: the SaaS vendors that don't adapt will lose spend to AI-native alternatives.
Read on Technology Radar →Screendragon: Marketing AI Is Stalling at Scale
Study of 500 marketing, creative, and operations leaders finds AI is now "almost universal" — but only 24% have fully integrated it into everyday workflows. Only 18% of work enters organizations through structured workflow systems. 82% lack connected digital asset management and workflow environments. The diagnosis: "Marketing doesn't have an AI adoption problem. It has an operational connection problem."
Read on MarTech Cube →SAP AI Agent Hub Goes GA in Q3 — Governance Becomes a Product
Built on SAP LeanIX, the AI Agent Hub will be generally available this quarter. It's a centralized control plane to discover, verify, observe, and optimize all agents in the environment — with architectural boundaries, data access policies, and KPI monitoring. SAP is betting that "agent governance" becomes a product category, not an optional best practice. For enterprise buyers, this answers the question: "Who audits the agents already making decisions?"
Read on ERP Today →💡 My Take
Read this one: The CMO Council audit. The numbers are stark — 71% say first-party data capabilities are ineffective, 37% are lagging in AI deployment. And the insight lands hard: "AI exposes every structural weakness." If your martech stack is fragmented, AI won't save you. It'll accelerate the chaos. The winners will be teams that fix the plumbing before they turn on the AI.