Key points
- Gartner found 73% of marketing leaders call their function fully or mostly centralized, up from 67% the year before.
- MarTech says AI pushes marketing toward shared foundations and, at the same time, toward more independent local execution.
- Data, technology, creative, media, operations and market execution need not share one structure; many firms will land on a hybrid model.
Why it matters for marketers: AI lets you rethink centralization one capability at a time, so marketing leaders should assign ownership deliberately instead of defaulting to either more control or more local freedom.
MarTech reports that AI is complicating an old organizational question for marketing leaders: which work belongs at the center and which should stay near the business. Gartner found that 73% of marketing leaders describe their function as fully or mostly centralized, compared with 67% a year earlier.
The pull toward the center is easy to explain. AI relies on common data, shared technology and consistent governance, which are hard to maintain when each region or brand goes its own way. Scarce, costly AI expertise is also easier to build once and share. Yet the same tools let local teams create and adapt content, analyze information and handle tasks that once needed a central team or an agency.
Both extremes carry costs. Heavy centralization can slow decisions, dull responsiveness to local needs and weaken business-unit ownership. Too little leaves companies paying for overlapping capabilities, with scattered data and uneven practices.
The article suggests different capabilities may suit different models. Gartner research points to more centralization where consistency, governance, expertise or shared infrastructure matter most, and more local ownership where customers, regulations, channels or competition differ across markets. A common outcome is a hybrid, with data, technology and specialists at the enterprise level and execution closer to markets.
For teams, the next step is to spell out ownership. Hybrid setups can create confusion and extra coordination unless leaders define who owns each capability, who decides what, and how much room local teams get. Leaders should also weigh what centralization would gain, such as less duplicate technology or lower cost, against what it might sacrifice, including speed and local knowledge.
Sources
This brief is our own summary. Read the full reporting at the source.