If you've seen the coverage of Spencer Stuart's new CMO survey, you already know the vibe. The Wall Street Journal: “layoffs expected”. Forbes: “2026 could be when the axe finally falls.“ The framing was consistent: AI is coming for marketing jobs, and soon.
They're not wrong. But there's a more optimistic and interesting reading of the same data.
First, the facts. Spencer Stuart interviewed about 90 CMOs and senior marketing leaders in November. 36% said they expect to reduce headcount in the next 12-24 months, either by deploying AI or eliminating redundant roles.
At the largest companies—those with $20 billion or more in annual revenue—the numbers are starker. Nearly half expect staff cuts over the next two years. A third have already made them in 2025.
Over the next 12–24 months, how do you anticipate AI will impact your marketing function’s hiring?
And the pressure is coming from the top. 37% of marketers at these big companies said their CEOs and CFOs expect cost cuts of at least 20% within two years.
So yes, it's bleak. But not everyone is reading from the same script.
LinkedIn's CMO, Jessica Jensen, offered a different lens in the WSJ piece. She said her conversations with the CEO and CFO are now about "the growth calculus, not the savings calculus."
That's a fundamentally different framing. One approach treats AI as a headcount-reduction tool. The other treats it as a multiplier—a way to move faster, not just leaner. The companies thinking this way aren't asking "how many people can we cut?" They're asking "what can we do now that we couldn't do before?"
These are also the companies creating new roles. Prompt engineers. AI ops analysts. AI search specialists. Data technologists. The survey found that only 4% of respondents hired new staff in the past year, so this isn't exactly a hiring boom. But it signals that the smartest organizations aren't just subtracting but restructuring around different capabilities.
The question for anyone in marketing right now isn't just "will my job survive?" It's "what adjacent skill should I be building?" And if you're a leader: which calculus are you optimizing for?
— Torsten & Peter
Get Strategic Intelligence
Every Saturday, Pro members get deep-dive strategic content, plus monthly trend reports analyzing what's actually changing in AI marketing.
AI Ready CMO Pro includes:
Full Saturday weekend editions (strategy + frameworks)
Monthly AI in Marketing Trend Reports
Advisory-level insights we use with clients
Hands-on implementation guides
Join hundreds of marketing leaders building career insurance.
Free Resources For Marketing Leaders
Our entire resource library is free because your career can't wait. Get the tools, frameworks, and assessments senior marketers use to stay ahead.
🚀 Marketing AI Readiness
Find out where your team actually stands on AI adoption. Get a personalized score and roadmap in 5 minutes.
💬 Marketing Prompt Generator
Stop writing prompts from scratch. Generate proven frameworks for any marketing task in seconds with our system.
💰 Guide: Marketing ROI for AI
Build the business case for AI investment. Calculate ROI and get frameworks to present to leadership.
🧠 Workshop: AI Prompting
Go beyond basic prompts. Learn how to use AI for strategic thinking, not just content generation.
📚 Workshop: AI Content Library
Set up systems that let your team create consistent, on-brand content at scale without losing quality. Learn the LEGO method.
🔬 Workshop: Market Research
Use AI to do market research that used to take weeks. Get customer insights faster and cheaper. Learn the DIG method.
Loved this edition? Share it and unlock rewards!
Our favourite AI tools this week:
Blaze
Drive your marketing strategies with AI-powered automation—Blaze lets you build, scale, and optimize faster than ever before.
Eleven Labs
Transform your brand voice with AI-generated, human-like speech—Eleven Labs makes your messaging more engaging and authentic.
n8n
Unlock seamless workflow automation for your marketing team—n8n connects all your tools and streamlines processes effortlessly.
