The latest martech developments highlight several AI-focused initiatives, including agentic commerce and new marketing agents. However, data from Supermetrics indicates a notable gap in adoption: while 70% of e-commerce brands prioritize optimizing marketing spend, only 8% currently use AI for campaign optimization. This suggests that the primary challenge for many organizations remains their underlying data infrastructure rather than the availability of AI tools themselves.
Here’s what CMOs actually need to pay attention to this week: Zeta Global’s Athena launch is real and the early results are credible — segmentation in minutes instead of days, campaign workflows in hours instead of weeks. But those results come from customers who already have clean, unified data. If your data is fragmented across 12 platforms, Athena won’t save you. Accenture’s investment in DaVinci Commerce signals something more structural: the commerce channel is being restructured around AI agents that shop on behalf of consumers. Brands that aren’t optimizing for AI-mediated discovery — not just human search — will find themselves invisible in the next generation of commerce. This is not a future problem. Shoptalk 2026 is happening right now, and the platform decisions being made this week will shape the next two years.
The Forrester Wave results for email marketing service providers tell a useful story about the real choice CMOs face: Zeta for AI-first simplification of a complex martech stack, Cordial for architecture-first activation of complex customer data. These are different solutions to different problems. The mistake is buying either one without being honest about which problem you actually have. The broader theme across all of yesterday’s announcements: AI adoption is accelerating faster than organizational readiness. The CMOs who will win are not the ones who buy the most AI tools — they’re the ones who fix their data foundation first, then let the AI do its job.
Latest News
Zeta Global Launches Athena by Zeta™ for General Availability, Ushering in the Superintelligent Marketing Era — March 24, 2026 | Business Wire
Zeta Global (NYSE: ZETA) announced the general availability of Athena by Zeta™, its superintelligent marketing agent built for enterprise CMOs and marketing leaders. Athena converts enterprise data into predictive answers and decisive action, enabling marketing teams to identify opportunities faster, execute with precision, and prove the business impact of every decision. Powered by advanced OpenAI models and Zeta’s proprietary data cloud, Athena offers conversational analytics, goal-based optimization, adaptive revenue modeling, and journey attribution across paid, owned, online, and offline channels. Early users report that segmentation that once required days can now be completed in minutes, and campaign workflows that previously spanned weeks can now execute in hours. The platform is now available to all Zeta Marketing Platform customers. Zeta claims clients already see a 6x return on ad spend, with Athena designed to push performance further. Red Roof Hotels is among the early adopters, citing Athena’s predictive insight as a shift from reactive to anticipatory performance marketing.
Supermetrics Data Shows Campaign Optimization Ranks Last in AI Adoption Among Retail, E-Commerce and CPG Brands — March 24, 2026 | PR Newswire
Supermetrics released new findings from its Marketing Data Report 2026, revealing a stark disconnect between stated priorities and actual AI usage among retail, e-commerce, and CPG/FMCG marketers. Only 17% of respondents use AI for campaign analysis and optimization — the least-adopted AI use case — despite 70% identifying optimizing marketing spend as a top short-term goal. E-commerce brands ranked lowest in campaign optimization AI adoption at just 8%, despite operating in one of the most data-rich marketing environments. Content creation (38%) and automation workflows (27%) see far higher AI adoption. Key barriers cited include limited in-house expertise (38%), insufficient technical infrastructure (30%), and unclear AI business value or ROI (27%). The findings point to an execution gap rather than a priority gap, with fragmented data keeping marketers reactive rather than proactive.
Perfect Corp. Showcases AI-Powered Beauty Agents and API Innovations Driving the Future of Retail at Shoptalk 2026 — March 24, 2026 | Business Wire
Perfect Corp. (NYSE: PERF), the leading AI and AR solutions provider for beauty, fashion, and retail, showcased its AI Beauty Agent and developer-first API suite at Shoptalk 2026. The AI Beauty Agent delivers real-time, conversational, and deeply personalized shopping recommendations, continuously adapting throughout the shopping journey to guide discovery, answer product questions, and deliver contextual recommendations that evolve with user behavior. Perfect Corp.’s pay-as-you-go API ecosystem — covering virtual try-on, AI skin analysis, face and attribute detection, and generative AI for content creation — is designed to democratize access to advanced AI for brands of all sizes, with costs starting as low as a few dollars per month. The consumption-based pricing model enables faster experimentation and reduced risk for retailers looking to adopt AI without heavy upfront investment. The company has over 800 global brand partners and its YouCam apps have been downloaded over 1.1 billion times globally.
Zeta Marketing Platform Named a Leader in Forrester Wave™: Email Marketing Service Providers, Q1 2026 — March 23, 2026 | Business Wire
Zeta Global announced that the Zeta Marketing Platform has been recognized as a Leader in The Forrester Wave™: Email Marketing Service Providers, Q1 2026, receiving the highest Strategy score among all evaluated vendors and the highest possible scores (5.0) in 11 criteria, including AI Approach, Identity Resolution, Data Management, Data Governance, Vision, Innovation, and Roadmap. Forrester noted that “Zeta’s approach to AI, data management, and data governance stand out” and that the platform “will work well for marketers of all industries and capability levels, particularly those who want to maximize their customer insights by experimenting with AI.” The recognition comes as enterprises replace legacy martech stacks with AI-driven platforms, with Zeta positioning itself as the unified system that eliminates the need for fragmented point solutions.
Cordial Named a Leader in Forrester Wave™: Email Marketing Service Providers, Q1 2026 — March 23, 2026 | PR Newswire
Cordial, the enterprise marketing platform used by Levi’s, L.L.Bean, and Boot Barn, was named one of only three Leaders in The Forrester Wave™: Email Marketing Service Providers, Q1 2026, receiving the highest possible scores in 10 criteria including identity resolution, queries and segmentation, dynamic messaging, content management, data governance, consumer privacy, regulatory compliance, and roadmap. Forrester described Cordial as a great fit for cross-channel retailers that want to activate large, disparate data sets into highly customized communications. The platform’s architecture — which keeps customer data, decision logic, and message execution in a single system — is designed to prevent the context fragmentation that occurs when these layers are separated across different tools. Cordial’s AI investment accounts for 30% of its R&D spend, and the company is one of only two vendors to receive the highest possible score in the Roadmap criterion.
Shippo Expands Shippo Intelligence with New AI-Powered Insights and Advanced Shipping Analytics — March 24, 2026 | PR Newswire
Shippo, the leading shipping platform for modern e-commerce, announced the next phase of Shippo Intelligence, introducing weekly AI-generated insights emails, interactive shipping performance maps, and new dashboards for surcharges and positive adjustments. Eligible customers who print at least 100 labels per week will receive personalized weekly insights emails summarizing key shipping trends, highlighting meaningful changes across shipping spend, delivery performance, and shipment volume, along with clear recommendations on next steps. The interactive maps enable regional analysis of shipping activity and delivery performance, with advanced filtering by carrier account, origin ZIP codes, and destination regions. The surcharges dashboard provides detailed breakdowns of additional fees by carrier, service level, and cause, helping merchants identify and reduce unexpected charges. Shippo serves over 4.6 million customers and processes shipping across 40+ global carriers.
Digital.Marketing Releases Comprehensive AI Digital Marketing Statistics Report Highlighting Rapid Industry Transformation — March 24, 2026 | USA Today / EdgenewswireDigital.Marketing released its AI Digital Marketing Statistics report, a comprehensive analysis of how artificial intelligence is reshaping the modern marketing landscape. Key findings include: AI is no longer a competitive advantage but is rapidly becoming a baseline requirement; a growing majority of marketers now use AI tools, with usage expanding beyond content generation into campaign optimization, predictive analytics, and customer segmentation; traditional keyword-based search strategies are being replaced by intent-driven, entity-based approaches as LLMs reshape discovery, giving rise to Generative Engine Optimization (GEO); AI-driven bidding, targeting, and creative optimization in platforms like Google Ads and Meta are reducing the need for manual campaign management; and AI is accelerating a shift toward winner-take-most dynamics in digital marketing, where top-performing brands capture a disproportionate share of visibility and conversions. The report emphasizes that isolated AI use cases are no longer sufficient — organizations must embed AI across their full marketing stack to remain competitive.
