CMOs & CIOs split over AI decision-making at firms

Acquia has published research showing that Chief Marketing Officers and Chief Information Officers disagree over who leads shared artificial intelligence decisions. The study surveyed 500 senior technology and marketing executives in the United States, the United Kingdom and France.

The findings point to a divide between marketing and IT over ownership of core platform decisions tied to content management systems and digital experience platforms. Among CMOs, 25% said marketing leads those decisions, 24% said IT does, and 18% identified the Head of Digital.

That view differed sharply on the technology side. Among CIOs and CTOs, 57% said they were the main decision-maker on CMS and DXP choices, while 66% said they were the key evaluator. In their view, CMOs and Marketing Directors accounted for 33% and 42% respectively.

The gap suggests the two functions are working from different assumptions about authority within the same organisations. It comes as companies face pressure to decide who governs AI systems that rely on shared content, data and workflows.

Governance doubts

The research found that uncertainty over governance runs deeper than the dispute over ownership. Two-thirds of CMOs said proving AI-generated marketing is governed and controlled has become a brand reputation issue, yet only 41% were confident their own team could embed effective governance into AI initiatives.

That was the lowest confidence score among the priorities tested in the study. By contrast, 73% of CMOs said they were confident in their ability to drive revenue growth.

Content fragmentation emerged as one reason for that lack of confidence. Some 61% of CMOs said content is spread across so many systems that no one has a single reliable source of truth, while only 40% said their technology stack is ready for AI agents to operate within it today.

Technology leaders reported a similar tension from a different angle. Seven in 10 CIOs and CTOs described data sovereignty as essential to their organisation, and 56% said they would not deploy AI until content structure and data integrity were in place.

At the same time, 51% said migration complexity was a significant obstacle to making those changes. Many organisations are therefore caught between caution over risk and the difficulty of fixing the systems that create it.

Shared pressure

The study also highlighted personal pressure on marketing leaders as AI spending rises. Some 43% of CMOs said failing to prove a return on AI investment was the single biggest threat to their position, ahead of missing revenue targets or losing budget to IT.

The picture that emerges is less about one department resisting another and more about both sides facing a governance problem without a clearly accepted chain of command. Marketing is more exposed to brand and reputational risk from AI output, while IT remains focused on data control, architecture and deployment standards.

Chris Tranquill, Chief Executive Officer at Acquia, said the issue is now closely tied to trust in digital brands. "Trust used to be earned one visitor at a time," Tranquill said. "Now it's judged instantly, by a machine, on behalf of someone who may never see your homepage. You don't win that kind of trust with a bigger marketing budget or a stricter compliance checklist. You win it when everything an AI agent finds about your brand comes from one governed source of truth, built by marketing and IT together."

Acquia also pointed to Edrington, owner of whisky brands including The Macallan and Highland Park, as an example of a business using AI within a website migration project. The group worked with partner FreelyGive to generate and test website components, including an age gate tied to compliance requirements, without slowing editorial work.

The research was commissioned by Acquia, conducted by Coleman Parkes Research and analysed by VCCP. It surveyed 250 CIOs and CTOs and 250 CMOs across the three markets.

The findings suggest many companies are trying to move AI projects forward before settling a basic management question: who is responsible when marketing and IT must make the same decision.