CMOs Have More Influence Than Ever

CMOs are at the table. New research from Arketi Group and JM Search finds that marketing leaders are operating with stronger executive relationships, broader scope, and deeper involvement in revenue and AI strategy than at any point in recent memory.

But influence and infrastructure are not the same thing. Only 38% of active CMOs say the role is actually structured to support the mandate they’ve been given. The scope expanded. The budget, reporting lines, and organizational support underneath it didn’t.

This is a familiar pattern. Marketing gets handed more responsibility during periods of growth or transformation, but the structural investment follows slowly, if at all. The risk is that CMOs deliver results on an expanded mandate and then watch the credit (and the authority) redistribute during the next reorg.

The window matters. CMOs who are operating with real influence right now have an opportunity to formalize it: lock in the cross-functional authority, the direct reporting lines, and the budget architecture that makes the expanded role sustainable. That’s easier to do from a position of momentum than from a position of defense.

Source: Arketi Group / JM Search, CMO Signals & Shifts Q1 2026