Key takeaways: The marketing cost-center problem is old, but it’s accelerating. The share of CEOs who see marketing as a cost rather than a profit center jumped from 35% to 60% in one year. The cause is measurement. Only 13% of CEOs feel confident that marketing can show financial benefits, and producing more content with AI doesn’t close that gap. What moves marketing off the cost line is credible, expert-led content that’s tied to the pipeline and revenue it generates.
The perception that marketing is a cost center is older than most of the people arguing about it. Ask any finance team where to trim when revenue dips, and marketing’s budget is usually a target. Plenty of CEOs have chalked up the role as an expense.
What’s changed is how fast that view is spreading. Sixty percent of CEOs view marketing as a cost center rather than a profit center, according to a 2026 Boathouse study. That’s up from 35% in 2025, a 25-percentage-point jump in one year. That has to make marketing leaders nervous before budget conversations.
Have CEOs given up on marketing?
CEOs still expect marketing to drive growth. In the Boathouse study, 65% named sales growth as marketing’s top mandate, and the share who see brand and narrative as important rose 24 percentage points year over year, from 23% to 47%.
The catch is which kind of work CEOs trust marketing to own. The study describes a role pushed toward short-term, measurable execution and away from long-term growth. CEOs now expect marketing to prove its work in the near term, leaving less room for the slower bets whose payoff is often hard to pin down.
Marketers are responding in kind. Duke University’s 2026 CMO Survey found that 70.6% now lean toward short-term benefits over long-run gains because they’re under pressure to prove their value. That trend is what turns a high-expectation moment into a cost-center problem. When leaders can’t see a long-term return, they fall back on what they can count.
Why is CEO confidence in marketing slipping?
The slide comes down to measurement. In the Boathouse study, CEOs gave their marketing teams credit for commitment and hard work, yet they couldn’t connect marketing activity to revenue growth. Only 13% said they were very confident in marketing’s ability to show financial benefits. When those who approve the budget can’t see the payoff, the cost-center label becomes the easy default.
Marketers see the same gap from their side. In the 2026 “CMO Signals & Shifts” study from Arketi Group, only 38% of chief marketing officers (CMOs) said they felt set up to succeed, even when their C-suite relationships were strong. Duke’s survey points to why. Marketers cite a shortage of people, time and budget to prove what their work delivers. And while marketing’s role keeps expanding into revenue, its partnership with finance has barely improved. Teams are taking on additional responsibilities without the alignment they need to show results.
The stakes are personal. In the Arketi study, 67% of CMOs put alignment with the CEO and C-suite at the top of what affects how long they keep the job, with performance outcomes close behind at 62%. Both are exactly what the cost-center label puts at risk. Marketing leaders who can’t connect the work to revenue are the ones those numbers expose.
With their job security on the line, marketers reach for the fastest lever they have. Today, that means AI. Every marketing leader in the Arketi study reported using it, and 79% lean on it to hit their 2026 goals, mostly to produce more content from the same headcount.
Can AI content fix marketing’s proof problem?
More content rarely closes the gap between marketing activity and revenue. This pattern isn’t unique to marketing. McKinsey & Co. calls it the AI “paradox,” meaning adoption and investment keep accelerating while performance benefits remain elusive. Deloitte’s 2026 “State of AI in the Enterprise” report, drawn from more than 3,200 business leaders, reinforces the point. Two-thirds of companies are improving efficiency and productivity from AI, but only 20% are seeing revenue growth.
The reason the gap persists points to the fix. Deloitte found that 84% of companies haven’t redesigned jobs around AI. Instead, they added AI to existing processes. Marketers may produce content faster with AI, but the underlying work doesn’t change, so the results don’t either. McKinsey makes the same case from the strategy side. Companies realize gains by rebuilding how work gets done. Tacking AI onto existing workflows accelerates the old processes.
Does AI content make human expertise less valuable?
AI content is making human expertise more valuable than ever. When every marketer can create unlimited articles, blog posts and social copy using AI, that content blends in with everyone else’s. What stands out is a point of view from someone who’s done the work.
Deloitte’s research draws the same conclusion. Its 2026 report states that AI pays off the most when it elevates human strengths like judgment, creativity and relationship-building. The companies pulling ahead use AI to extend what their experts know and let that expertise lead.
Buyers feel the difference. The Pew Research Center’s “Americans and AI 2026” study found that about half of U.S. adults now use AI chatbots, but trust hasn’t followed, and most say the technology is moving too fast. As AI-generated material spreads across channels, the content that shows human credibility earns their attention.
What happens if marketing remains a cost center?
The Boathouse research already shows CEOs are asking marketing to focus less on long-term growth and more on short-term execution. Left unaddressed, that pattern sets the ceiling on what marketing owns and what leaders will fund. The growth mandate goes to someone else or no one owns it.
The risk is already measurable. Duke’s survey found that when profits fall short, 53% of companies make cutting expenses the priority, up from 46% a year earlier. When they cut, marketing is first about 45% of the time. A role leaders can’t tie to revenue is the easiest one to trim.
Whether marketing remains a cost center or becomes a revenue contributor depends on closing that gap.
What moves marketing from cost to profit?
Marketing that connects directly to growth earns a CEO’s confidence, and that requires human expertise. A point of view from someone who’s solved buyer problems is what turns content from overlooked to pipeline.
Here’s a model we’ve seen work: An expert-led content engine starts with the knowledge your experts already have and builds a system that captures it, publishes it where buyers form opinions and links it to revenue. As we covered in building a Content Bank, one anchor asset can generate a quarter’s worth of articles, posts and sales assets from one expert interview and one accuracy review. AI can accelerate early drafts and help repurpose and scale expert insights.
With that system in place, marketers can trace content to the deals it influenced and the revenue that pipeline produced. The role a CEO once viewed as a cost starts earning credit for growth.
How do you measure ROI from expert-led content?
Connecting content to revenue is the hard part, especially for expert-led content that influences a deal long before a buyer interacts with a sales rep. Our next article will explain how to measure ROI and pipeline influence from expert-led content, and how to move past the vanity metrics that don’t tie to either.
Because they can’t connect marketing activity to revenue. In Boathouse’s 2026 study, 60% of CEOs viewed marketing as a cost rather than a profit center, and only 13% felt confident marketing could show financial benefits.
No. Finance has long eyed marketing’s budget first when revenue tightens. What’s new is the speed. The share of CEOs calling marketing a cost center jumped from 35% to 60% in a single year.
Not on its own. Deloitte found two-thirds of companies see productivity gains from AI, but only 20% see revenue growth.
By producing credible, expert-led content that buyers act on and tracing it to the pipeline and revenue it influences. When a CEO can see that line, marketing earns credit for growth.
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