CMO Readiness
Report 2026
AI visibility is becoming a funded priority. Marketing leaders’ measurement, confidence and readiness have not kept pace.
Explore the findingsexpect spending to rise
rarely or never appear in AI recommendations
measure visibility systematically
feel prepared for AI-led discovery
AI visibility is moving from an emerging marketing concern to a funded priority. Most respondents are already testing, measuring or investing in it, and 83.7% expect spending to increase next year. But operational maturity has not kept pace: only 18.3% measure visibility systematically, 55.2% say their brand appears rarely or never in AI recommendations, and just 32.7% feel prepared for consumers shifting from traditional search to AI assistants.
The central finding is a readiness gap. Marketing leaders recognise the importance of AI visibility and are directing money towards it, often from existing SEO, content and communications budgets. Yet they still lack reliable measurement, clear proof of return and confidence that AI systems represent their brands accurately.
01 / At a glance
Executive summary
AI visibility is already a budget priority. 83.7% expect spending to increase next financial year, including 70.0% who expect growth of more than 20%.
Brand visibility remains weak. 55.2% say their brand appears rarely or never when AI recommends providers in their category.
Accuracy is inconsistent. Among respondents who evaluated an AI answer about their brand, 54.8% found it partly inaccurate, significantly inaccurate or absent altogether.
Activity is ahead of maturity. 60.4% have an established programme or active initiatives, but only 18.3% measure AI visibility systematically.
Most organisations are not ready for the search shift. 44.2% feel unprepared and a further 23.1% do not know whether they are prepared.
The main barriers are evidential, not financial. Lack of reliable measurement (41.5%) and difficulty proving ROI (35.8%) rank ahead of lack of budget (8.9%).
AI visibility is expected to overtake SEO. 54.6% believe it will be more important than traditional SEO by 2028; another 20.1% expect equal importance.
02 / The findings
The market is acting before it feels confident
Only 30.9% are very or fairly confident that AI assistants describe their brand accurately. By contrast, 53.6% are not confident and 15.5% do not know. This uncertainty exists even though 85.0% say they personally asked an AI assistant about their brand or products during the previous month.
The checking behaviour exposes a material quality problem. Among respondents answering the follow-up accuracy question, 9.8% found the result fully accurate and 35.4% mostly accurate with minor errors. The remaining 54.8% encountered missing or misleading information: 20.7% found key information absent or partly inaccurate, 17.6% found the answer significantly inaccurate, and 16.5% said their brand was not mentioned at all.
Visibility in recommendation prompts is also limited. Only 19.1% say their brand appears almost always and 20.1% say it appears sometimes. A majority, 55.2%, report that it appears rarely or never, while 5.6% have not checked.
Headline finding: 85.0% have checked what AI says about their brand, but only 45.2% of those evaluating the answer found it fully or mostly accurate.
Reported percentages · Survey base: 198 respondents
Q9 · Respondents who answered yes at Q8.
Reported percentages · Survey base: 198 respondents
03 / The findings
Programmes are expanding faster than measurement
AI visibility has entered active marketing plans. 16.8% report an established strategy and programme, while 43.6% have active initiatives without a formal strategy. Another 25.3% are piloting or planning activity. Only 1.9% have not considered the issue.
Measurement is widespread but often informal. 18.3% measure AI visibility systematically and 55.2% do so occasionally or manually. A further 12.5% plan to begin within 12 months. This leaves a large execution gap between organisations doing something and organisations able to track performance consistently.
Among organisations that measure, commercial outcomes receive the greatest attention. Leads or sales are tracked by 65.7%, visibility for priority questions by 59.6%, referral traffic by 47.6% and brand mentions by 45.8%. Fewer track share of voice against competitors (22.2%), answer accuracy or sentiment (16.7%), or citations and links (9.8%). Because this was a multi-select question, percentages do not sum to 100%.
Reported percentages · Survey base: 198 respondents
Q13 applies only to organisations measuring AI visibility. This is a multi-select question; percentages may exceed 100%.
04 / The findings
Budgets are rising and existing channels are funding the shift
Current investment varies widely. 10.6% spend less than £10,000 or nothing, 12.4% spend £10,000–£49,999, and 48.8% spend at least £50,000. Within that higher-spending group, 20.7% spend £50,000–£99,999, 17.8% spend £100,000–£499,999 and 10.3% spend £500,000 or more. Another 11.5% invest but cannot separate the amount, while 16.7% do not know or prefer not to say.
The direction of travel is decisive. 40.4% expect spending to rise by more than 50% next year, 29.6% expect a 21–50% increase and 13.7% expect an increase of up to 20%. Only 2.9% expect a decrease and 2.5% have no spending planned.
Respondents estimate that AI visibility currently accounts for 12.5% of marketing budget, compared with 26.1% for traditional SEO and 68.2% for paid search and paid social. These categories were explicitly allowed not to total 100%, so they should be presented as reported allocations rather than parts of a single budget pie.
Much of the funding is being reallocated from established marketing disciplines. Traditional SEO is the main source for 30.9%, followed by content marketing at 17.8% and PR and communications at 15.4%. Only 9.6% mainly use newly created budget, and 1.1% draw mainly from a central AI or innovation budget. This suggests that AI visibility is becoming part of mainstream marketing expenditure rather than remaining an isolated innovation project.
Reported percentages · Survey base: 198 respondents
05 / The findings
Ownership is fragmented
CMO or marketing leadership has primary responsibility in 26.7% of organisations. Ownership then fragments across content (15.9%), PR and communications (13.2%), SEO (10.8%), digital or performance marketing (9.6%), brand (9.2%), and marketing operations or technology (4.6%). Only 2.2% use a cross-functional team, no respondents identify an external agency as the primary owner, and 6.2% say nobody currently owns it.
The pattern points to a coordination problem. AI visibility touches brand representation, content, technical discoverability, reputation and measurement, but most organisations have placed accountability inside one existing function. Teams may move faster in the short term, but fragmented ownership makes shared standards, measurement and investment decisions harder to sustain.
06 / The findings
Measurement and ROI are the largest barriers
The leading barrier is lack of reliable measurement, selected by 41.5%, followed by difficulty proving ROI at 35.8%. Competing priorities affect 22.3%, lack of expertise 20.2%, and rapidly changing platforms 19.7%. Lack of budget is cited by only 8.9%, reinforcing the finding that the bigger constraint is knowing what works rather than securing initial funding.
Other barriers are less prevalent: legal or brand-safety concerns are selected by 7.5%, unclear ownership by 5.4%, and insufficient perceived business value by 4.3%. Because respondents could choose up to three barriers, percentages do not sum to 100%.
Q19 · Up to three selections per respondent; totals may exceed 100%.
07 / The findings
Most organisations are not ready for AI-led discovery
Only 15.6% feel very prepared and 17.1% fairly prepared for consumers increasingly using AI assistants instead of traditional search. By comparison, 25.5% feel not very prepared and 18.7% not at all prepared. A further 23.1% do not know, meaning two-thirds are either unprepared or unable to assess their readiness.
Expectations for 2028 are much stronger than current readiness. 28.9% expect AI visibility to be much more important than traditional SEO and 25.7% slightly more important. Another 20.1% expect equal importance. Only 15.4% believe it will be less important, while 9.9% do not know.
Reported percentages · Survey base: 198 respondents
Reported percentages · Survey base: 198 respondents
08 / The findings
What marketing leaders should do next
1. Establish a repeatable benchmark. Track priority prompts, brand inclusion, competitor share of voice, answer accuracy, citations and links on a fixed schedule.
2. Connect visibility to commercial outcomes. Combine AI-answer monitoring with referral, lead and sales data so investment decisions do not depend on anecdotal checks.
3. Create cross-functional ownership. Give one senior leader accountability while defining contributions from SEO, content, PR, brand, analytics and legal.
4. Correct the information AI systems rely on. Audit owned content, authoritative third-party sources and structured information for gaps, inconsistencies and outdated claims.
5. Protect the existing search engine optimisation base. Treat AI visibility as an extension of discoverability and reputation, with clear rules for where budgets should be reallocated and what performance must be preserved.
6. Build a readiness plan for 2028 now. Define priority use cases, governance, measurement standards and capability gaps before consumer behaviour changes faster than internal processes.
09 / The findings
Respondent profile
The survey includes 198 respondents. 46.5% are CMOs, marketing directors or vice-presidents of marketing, 31.9% are heads of marketing, and the remainder hold senior brand, communications, digital, SEO, performance or other marketing roles. No respondents selected the screen-out option.
The sample is weighted towards the United States: 61.8% are primarily based in the US, 27.1% in the UK, 8.5% elsewhere in Europe and 2.6% in other markets. Results should therefore be described as findings from this respondent group rather than assumed to represent all marketing leaders globally.
Professional services is the largest industry group at 17.9%, followed by technology and software at 16.4% and retail or ecommerce at 12.2%. The sample covers a broad range of sectors. Organisations are 45.5% B2B, 39.5% B2C, 12.1% both, and 2.9% public sector or nonprofit.
Most respondents work in mid-sized or large organisations: 32.9% have 50–249 employees, 28.7% have 250–999, 15.7% have 1,000–4,999 and 10.2% have 5,000 or more. Annual marketing budgets are concentrated between £250,000 and £19.99 million.
10 / The findings
Methodology and reporting notes
The survey base is 198 respondents. Percentages are reported to one decimal place and may show minor rounding differences. Q9 applies to respondents who answered yes at Q8. Q13 applies to organisations that measure AI visibility. Q13 and Q19 are multi-select questions, so totals can exceed 100%. Q16 asks for separate budget percentages that were not required to sum to 100%.
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