"Scott Brinker and Frans Riemersma's "Martech for 2026" keynote opened with a wall of logos - AI agents everywhere. Content production agents deployed by 70% of marketing teams. Customer service chatbots are now commonplace. McKinsey projections show that by 2028, roughly $750 billion in consumer spend will flow through AI-powered search, with 20%-50% of traditional traffic at risk. The data is the most precise snapshot we have of where AI agents are actually being deployed in marketing today."
"The data is the most precise snapshot we have of where AI agents are actually being deployed in marketing today. Internal agents are accelerating production through marketing automation and data analytics, lightening workload while improving accuracy. Customer-facing agents are handling volume and engagement. And external agents - the ones customers control, like ChatGPT and Perplexity - are quietly becoming a shadow operating system for how buyers discover and evaluate brands."
"However, as I studied the charts and listened to the sessions, a pattern began to emerge. The survey shows that we're maturing rapidly at both the tool and process levels. This deep maturity sets the stage for the next great frontier: the constitutional layer. That's the architecture that keeps AI decisions auditable, repeatable and aligned with brand identity as agents multiply across the stack. That frontier is where the next wave of competitive advantage will be won or lost."
AI agents now operate across three domains: internal marketer tools, company-controlled customer-facing systems, and customer-controlled external assistants. Internal agents speed production via automation and data analytics, reducing workload and improving accuracy. Customer-facing agents handle engagement and volume through chatbots, shopper concierges, AI SDRs, and automated email. External customer agents like ChatGPT and Perplexity function as a shadow operating system for discovery and evaluation. Adoption rates are high, with 70% of teams using content production agents and chatbots common. Rapid tool and process maturity creates a need for a constitutional layer to ensure auditable, repeatable, brand-aligned AI decisions.
Read at MarTech
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