Quantitative survey of 321 U.S. and U.K. marketing technology decision-makers reveals governance gaps tied to higher campaign error rates
Stensul released The MarTech Governance Outlook: Campaign Creation, AI Adoption & Risk, examining how organizations manage campaign creation workflows, AI adoption, and governance maturity. The report finds a widening gap between the speed mandates organizations are setting and the systems in place to meet them safely.
AI adoption is broadly cited as the top organizational mandate for marketing teams in 2026 (38%), and nearly half of respondents (47%) report AI enables campaigns to be created up to 50% faster. Yet 53% of organizations report they do not have comprehensive AI governance in place for marketing campaign creation. Nearly half (44%) report AI adoption has increased compliance or brand risk.
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Governance maturity is a strong predictor of campaign error rates. While 40% of organizations experienced one to 10 campaign errors in the past year, nearly nine in 10 organizations without comprehensive governance reported at least one error in the last 12 months. The most common consequence is increased scrutiny and heavier review processes (44%), compounding friction that erodes the speed AI was adopted to create.
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“This research puts hard numbers behind a dynamic we see playing out across enterprise marketing every day,” said Rachel Meranus, Chief Revenue and Marketing Officer at Stensul. “AI is delivering real operational gains — fewer bottlenecks, faster creation, more campaign throughput. But when governance doesn’t evolve alongside it, organizations aren’t just accepting more risk. They’re setting up a cycle where errors trigger scrutiny, scrutiny slows execution, and the speed advantage they invested in gradually disappears.”
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