Gartner Marketing Symposium/Xpo: Day 2 Highlights

We are bringing you news and highlights from Day 2 of the 2026 Gartner Marketing Symposium/Xpo, taking place this week in Denver. Below is a collection of the key announcements and insights coming out of the conference. 

On Day 2, we are highlighting sessions on the impact of LLMs on search marketing strategy, how to find, capture, and sustain AI value, and why CMOs must stop optimizing channels in isolation and instead anchor marketing around customer journeys.

• Gartner Marketing Survey Finds Awareness and Conversion Account for 62.6% of Total Media Spend
• Gartner Says AI-Powered Disinformation Is Becoming a Brand Risk Marketers Can’t Ignore
• Consumers' Changing Relationship With Media in the Age of AI

By Matt Moorut, Sr Director Analyst, Gartner

In the age of LLMs (Large Language Model), search marketing is changing fast. In this session, Matt Moorut, Sr Director Analyst at Gartner, explained why marketers need to stop thinking about LLMs as a replacement for search and instead treat them as part of a broader exploration strategy that aligns SEO (Search Engine Optimization), SEM (Search Engine Marketing) and AEO (Answer Engine Optimization). 

• “LLMs have not killed business performance, but they have changed the way search performance looks. Marketers will need to stop relying on traffic alone and start judging search through the lens of business outcomes.”

• “Brands need exploration strategies that support traditional search and AI-driven discovery.”

• “AEO is not a replacement for SEO; it’s the next evolution of it. 

• The brands that win will build on strong SEO fundamentals, then adapt their content and site structure, so answer engines can understand and surface them.” 

• “There is no single, perfect metric to judge search marketing performance on. Now more than ever, marketers need a combination of KPIs to understand whether they’re doing well or badly.”

• “AEO activities don’t replace SEO activities. AI tools support AEO, SEO and SEM performance growth.”

   

  Journalists can receive additional information and/or request an interview with Matt Moorut by contacting Juliette Dixon at juliette.dixon@gartner.com.

Presented by Nicole Greene, Vice President Analyst, Gartner

Expectations for AI-powered transformation are soaring, but many CMOs still struggle to prove tangible value. In her session at Gartner Marketing Symposium/Xpo, Nicole Greene, Vice President Analyst in the Gartner Marketing Practice, outlined how marketing leaders can move beyond pilot purgatory and the “productivity trap”.

• “Only 15% of CEOs say the CMO has the level of AI-savviness they need in 2026. That gap is a risk - but it’s also an opportunity to lead.”

• “AI readiness moves faster than human readiness, and that mismatch is what makes value so hard to capture.”

• “To find AI value, assess readiness across three practical areas: assessing technical capabilities, taking a hybrid approach to the vendor landscape, and understanding the hidden costs.”

• “People - not technology - are the biggest bottleneck. Forty percent of marketing leaders say AI pilots have been moderately or significantly hampered by staff fears and anxiety.”

• “The AI agent and the employee should enhance each other’s performance and skills - working together, they should achieve more than either could alone.”

• “To sustain AI value, manage AI like a portfolio: align use cases to business cases, establish the right value metrics, and balance quick wins with transformation.”

   

  Journalists can receive additional information and/or request an interview with Nicole Greene by contacting Juliette Dixon at juliette.dixon@gartner.com.

By Suzanne Schwartz, Sr Director Analyst, Gartner

Market volatility and AI-driven disruption is collapsing channel silos and demanding real-time personalization. In this session, Suzanne Schwartz, Sr Director Analyst at Gartner, explained why CMOs must stop optimizing channels in isolation and instead anchor marketing around customer journeys as AI increasingly influences content, bidding and channel choice.

• “If you want to win in omnichannel, start with the customer journey, not the channel. The goal of marketing is to shape journey outcomes, not optimize a touchpoint in isolation.”  

• “Stop obsessing about channels and start optimizing for platforms.”

• “Your job is to manage a portfolio of platforms, allocating budget, attention and governance based on return, confidence, switching costs and concentration risk.”  

• “As AI makes more decisions on content, bidding and channel choice inside platforms, marketers need guardrails, governance and dynamic resource allocation, so they can rebalance investments and capture channel arbitrage opportunities in real time.”

• “To optimize your portfolio: start with the customer journey, optimize across platforms and fine-tune within each platform.”

   

  Journalists can receive additional information and/or request an interview with Suzanne Schwartz by contacting Juliette Dixon at juliette.dixon@gartner.com.