The coming year will see CMOs expand their roles beyond marketing, becoming innovators and growth drivers across the C-suite. Emphasizing customer trust, particularly in the age of AI and data, they must lead on consumer protection. Marketing is more than just acquisition now. It’s also about customer retention and customer lifetime value.

Here’s more to watch from these and other fronts in 2025:

Focus on customer trust

One recent survey indicated 69 percent of employees and 66 percent of consumers say it’s important that companies disclose their AI governance framework. Brands who are unable or unwilling to spell out their AI policies run the risk of fostering distrust.

CMOs can help guide the conversation in their respective market sector by explaining why protecting consumers is important in the age of Big Data — and how their organization is leading the way. Transparency is paramount to fostering trust. Remember too that for your long-term customers and clients, the payoff of AI comes in the form of personalization: an algorithm that learns their preferences, recognizes their habits, and reduces the volume of marketing content they’re not interested in.

As the potential applications for AI tools expand, it’s important that CMOs emphasize using AI creatively and responsibly. The employee experience also plays a pivotal role in delivering an exceptional customer experience, so be mindful of fostering trust with and among employees in your products. 

Integrating AI into internal processes

Shifts in technology are taking some of the day-to-day focus from creatives tasked with email marketing and social media to other areas. AI can handle repetitive tasks and help target specific audiences with the right messages, while marketers can flex their creative muscles with quality content creation.

By 2026, 80 percent of advanced creative roles — think producers, composers, etc. — will be tasked with harnessing Gen AI to achieve differentiated results. They will know how to leverage the potential of AI to create valuable applications, requiring CMOs to spend more on talent. AI can be an incredible tool for streamlining and scaling processes, but it must always align with your brand’s values.

Focus on customer lifetime value

Marketers expect that by 2025, customer lifetime value will be the most important priority, according to McKinsey. Outside of marketing, no one wants to hear about clicks or likes. Short-term signs of success offer little by way of long-term projections.

Any new engagement model demands a better measurement framework for growth. CEOs must work with their CFOs and CMOs to outline a marketing measurement framework that shows impact—and is one that everyone understands. 

Optimal marketing measurement starts at the CEO level — revenue growth, for example—and cascades down. Marketing can ensure that operational KPIs required for managing campaigns clearly link back to the overall growth objectives.

CMOs integrating into other C-Suite functions

Marketing encompasses customer experience, strategy, talent, technology, data, growth, and sales. So why should CMOs limit the scope of their daily business to the marketing personnel they oversee?

A CMO can assist many teams in organizational initiatives, carving out a role as innovator, strategist and growth driver. By embracing an enterprise-wide mindset, CMOs can flex their creative muscles outside their historical comfort zone.

By adding their voice to different facets of the organization, CMOs can help align organizational leaders and middle managers with overall growth objectives. In a dynamic technological landscape where consumer trust and loyalty is paramount, that voice is more important than ever.