CMOs and CIOs clash over who should own AI decisions

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 content management system and digital experience platform decisions, even as both sides say governance is becoming more important as organisations prepare to deploy AI tools.

Among Chief Marketing Officers, views on decision-making were split. A quarter said marketing owns CMS and DXP platform decisions, 24% said IT does, and 18% said the Head of Digital is responsible.

Chief Information Officers and Chief Technology Officers gave a different view. In that group, 57% said they make those decisions and 66% said they are the key evaluator. By their assessment, Chief Marketing Officers and Marketing Directors accounted for 33% and 42% respectively.

The gap extends beyond reporting lines to confidence in governance. Two-thirds of Chief Marketing Officers said proving that AI-generated marketing is governed and controlled has become a brand reputation issue, not just an IT concern.

Yet only 41% said they were confident their teams could embed meaningful governance into AI initiatives. That was the lowest confidence score among the priorities measured, compared with 73% who said they were confident in their ability to drive revenue growth.

Content fragmentation emerged as a central issue for marketing teams. Some 61% of Chief Marketing Officers said content is spread across so many systems that no one has a single reliable source of truth, while 40% said their technology stack is ready for AI agents to operate within it today.

Technology leaders reported similar tensions from a different starting point. Seven in 10 Chief Information Officers and Chief Technology Officers described data sovereignty as essential to their organisation, and 56% said they would not deploy AI until content structure and data integrity were sound.

At the same time, 51% said migration complexity is a significant barrier to fixing that foundation. This creates a mismatch between caution over governance and the practical ability to resolve the underlying data and content issues.

The research also suggests personal risk is shaping executive attitudes to AI. Among Chief Marketing Officers, 43% said failing to prove a return on AI investment is the single biggest threat to their position, ahead of missing revenue targets or losing budget to IT.

Shared pressure

The study reflects a broader shift in how AI purchasing and deployment decisions are made inside large organisations. Tools once bought or tested within one function are now more likely to affect compliance, content oversight, data management and brand risk across multiple teams.

That appears to be forcing closer ties between departments that have often operated with different priorities. Marketing leaders are under pressure to use AI in content and customer experience work, while IT leaders are expected to manage governance, infrastructure and risk.

The findings suggest these groups are co-owning the same decisions without a shared understanding of who has final authority. That lack of clarity may slow deployment as many companies are still working out how to move AI projects from experimentation into day-to-day use.

The survey covered 250 Chief Information Officers and Chief Technology Officers and 250 Chief Marketing Officers. Coleman Parkes Research conducted the survey and VCCP analysed it.

Acquia cited Edrington, the spirits group behind The Macallan and Highland Park, as an example. The company worked with Acquia partner FreelyGive on a website migration project and used AI to generate and test website components within Acquia Source, including an age gate required for compliance.

Chris Tranquill, Chief Executive Officer at Acquia, said the issue is no longer confined to internal workflow or technical controls.

"Trust used to be earned one visitor at a time. 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," Tranquill said.