The marketing playbook is due a refresh. To unlock growth in the AI era, CMOs must evolve beyond yesterday’s boundaries. The A-shaped framework is the definitive playbook for mastering agentic marketing and leading future-proof, high-performing marketing teams.
Two-thirds (65%) of chief marketing officers (CMOs) believe that AI will fundamentally reshape their roles, but that belief isn’t translating into action. According to Gartner, just one in three CMOs (32%) think they need to develop new skills to keep up with AI.
AI is redefining what it means to be a marketing leader. It’s no longer a balancing act between art and science – it demands a third pillar of mastery: operational excellence.
To bridge the gap between boardroom accountability and day-to-day execution, today’s leaders must rewrite the marketing playbook.
Salesforce teamed up with The Drum to find out what it takes to survive and become an A-shaped CMO. Here’s what we found.
The AI challenge for high-performing marketing teams
Today’s leading marketing teams are already using generative AI and predictive AI to power creative content and personalised campaigns. But there are more opportunities being left on the table.
On paper, CMOs are leading the AI charge. The majority (80%) consider themselves a dominant voice in their organisation’s AI strategy. But beneath the surface, actual implementation has stalled. Marketing teams are battling:
- Messy data (40%)
- Limited in-house capability (38%)
- Growing concerns about accuracy, privacy, and IP (34%).
This broken foundation is blocking the next frontier of growth: agentic AI. Unlike generative AI, which supports on-demand content production, agentic AI autonomously executes complex, multi-step workflows to drive business outcomes. While most marketing leaders want to use agentic AI, only 13% have actually started. One in four have never used it at all.
Meanwhile, C-suite expectations are rising. Boards are demanding CMOs deliver enterprise-level transformation at startup speed (40%) – without the systems, skills, or operational maturity to scale it effectively. To survive, marketing leaders need a new framework for success.
Introducing the A-shaped CMO
You’ve heard of the “T-shaped” marketer – the individual who focuses on building deep expertise in a core discipline over time, before adding surface-level breadth of exposure across other disciplines as they progress towards becoming CMO. For years, this was the gold standard for marketing professionals. But it was designed for a simpler world. A world without AI.
The T-shaped framework fails to account for the complex workflows, cross-functional dependencies, and automated technologies driving modern business growth.
The A-shaped CMO is the long-overdue evolution. It’s a robust, multi-dimensional framework for marketing leaders who manage hybrid workforces of humans and AI agents.
- The left pillar represents the science of marketing: Rooted in data and analytics that drive growth.
- The right pillar represents the art of marketing: Grounded in human emotion, brand storytelling, and creative intuition.
- The crossbar represents operational excellence: The connective tissue that empowers CMOs to design the architecture and workflows of integrated, high-performing hybrid teams of humans and agents.
A-shaped CMOs are future-proof. They orchestrate advanced AI agents alongside their human workforce to drive more seamless and personalised customer experiences. And they become indispensable in the process.
Building a future-ready marketing team
A-shaped CMOs lead marketing teams built for tomorrow, meaning they can’t operate with a legacy team infrastructure. As agentic AI becomes embedded in workflows, from autonomous lead nurturing to customer health analysis, the makeup of the marketing department will undergo a radical shift.
To build a future-fit marketing department, leaders need to move human talent up the value chain from execution to orchestration. CMOs plan to:
- Train teams in AI tools and prompting (50%)
- Establish clear standards to manage AI-generated outputs (48%)
- Hire data architects to get infrastructure AI-ready (44%)
But CMOs must also be conscious of the importance of their own development. Over the coming years, their skillsets need to evolve to become more strategic and operational – so they can effectively lead hybrid human-agent teams. Today, CMOs view these skills as most important:
- Human: strategic thinking (53%), creative thinking (44%), critical thinking (32%)
- Leadership: leadership and stakeholder management (54%), complex problem solving (52%), team management (48%)
- Marketing: digital marketing strategy including SEO/GEO (44%), creative strategy (39%), customer experience (30%)
- AI & data: data strategy & analysis (49%), agentic AI use case design (42%), AI governance & quality control (38%)
The transition to agentic marketing is happening now
Agentic marketing demands a fundamental evolution in how CMOs lead. To secure their seat at the boardroom table, pacesetting marketing leaders must consider how to evolve their team, govern a hybrid workforce of humans and agents, break down functional silos, and take a proactive role in bridging brand and performance.
They already have core practitioner skills in their disciplines. Now, they need to join them up with the operational mastery and agentic AI capability that their peers have yet to develop. This is the new mandate for the modern CMO – defining, designing, and delivering the future of agentic marketing.
Complacency has no place in marketing. Read the full A-shaped CMO report by The Drum to master the A-shaped framework and lead the shift to agentic marketing.
The A-Shaped Framework
Master the A-shaped Framework and lead the shift to agentic marketing.
