state of martech - Martech Therapy

The readiness thread inside the State of Martech 2026

Scott and Frans handed us value engineering and context engineering, both useful. The thread they didn't have time to pull is what your team has to actually become to operate any of it. Picking it up here, with a navy metaphor and the bit of the IKEA Billie story nobody talks about.

Like many of you, I watched the State of Martech 2026 keynote on MartechDay this past Tuesday. Around the forty-minute mark, Scott Brinker made a passing remark about MarOps careers.

AI is not taking over this work.

Quite the opposite.

As a result of AI, there is so much work to be done.

Frans Riemersma nodded. They both clearly believe it, and so do I. The line had no follow-up. A 55-minute keynote can only do so much, and the organizational implications of value engineering and context engineering were always going to be a thread to pick up rather than

The pilgrimage to MartechDay, and what I’m actually watching for

Brinker and Riemersma drop the State of Martech 2026 report on May 5. One week to form your own view before the social feed fills with hot takes. Three things I’m watching for: the maturity gap, what AI is doing to roles in the middle of the org chart, and whether the composable canvas is real.

There’s a sequence in Star Wars’ Andor where the pilgrims walk to the Eye of Aldhani. Once a decade, a meteor storm lights up the sky above a remote plateau. The faithful trek for days, sleep on rocks, and look up. It’s beautiful. It’s also, in the show, the perfect cover for a heist. Everyone’s distracted by the lights.

I keep thinking about that scene as May 5 approaches.

That’s when Scott Brinker and Frans Riemersma debut the State of Martech 2026 report and the updated 2026 Marketing Technology Landscape on MartechDay. It’s the

Same stack, different worlds

Multi CDP Part 2: Why Multi-CDP setups reflect team reality and not just tech debt

If you’ve ever heard someone say, “We already have a CDP,” it’s worth asking two questions:

What exactly do you mean by CDP?
And who is “we” in this scenario?

Because most of the time, what one team considers the CDP is just a feature to another. And what’s sold as a single platform rarely acts like one across an entire company.

This is where David Chan’s Dual Zone model starts to feel less like a theory and more like an MRI. The Data Zone and the Engagement Zone reflect how stacks are split in real

Agentic AI in Martech: From complicated to complex

Part 2: What happens when your Martech stack becomes a rainforest?

Last week I wrote about the scale problem with agentic AI, how systems making billions of decisions weekly break traditional governance models. But there's another dimension to this. One that goes beyond just volume.

It's about predictability. Or rather, the slow erosion of it.

Your Martech stack used to be a Ferrari. Now it's a rainforest.

Scott Brinker and Frans Riemersma used this metaphor in the State of Martech 2025 report to explain how AI is changing martech systems from "complicated" to "complex." They were focused on the technical implications. I want to explore what this means for governance and

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