1 Peak martech is here — the landscape just stopped growing
Chiefmartec's State of Martech 2026, released this week by Scott Brinker and Frans Riemersma, counts 15,505 products — up just 0.79% YoY, a net add of 121 tools. Underneath the flat number, the churn is violent: 1,488 products were added and 1,367 were removed. Notably, 51.7% of this year's exits came from the 2010–2019 SaaS wave. CMS & web experience grew 21.4%; ecommerce platforms grew 19.9%; iPaaS/data integration grew 8%; governance/privacy grew 7.1%.
After 15 years of relentless expansion, the landscape has plateaued for the first time. The honest read: AI isn't creating more martech, it's consolidating it. The categories that grew are exactly the ones AI is rewiring — CMS for AEO/GEO, ecommerce for agentic checkout, integration for context. If your stack hasn't been audited in 12 months, half of it is probably on someone else's exit list.
2 Adobe + OpenAI: GenStudio activates ChatGPT ads in one click
Adobe and OpenAI announced an integration that lets marketing teams assemble ChatGPT ads directly inside Adobe GenStudio for Performance Marketing — pulling brand-approved creative from Adobe Experience Manager, generating copy and image variants with locked brand guidelines, routing through Adobe Workfront for review, and activating campaigns in ChatGPT. ChatGPT now has 900 million weekly active users. OpenAI also rolled out a Conversions API, pixel-based measurement, and CPC bidding for advertisers.
This is the moment ChatGPT becomes a real media channel for enterprise. Until now, ChatGPT ads required hand-rolled workflows. With GenStudio, brand-governed creative now flows through the same approval rails as Meta or Google. Adobe SVP Pat Brown said the quiet part out loud: "what took us days now takes minutes." Translation: the moat for performance marketing is no longer ad ops — it's the system that signs off on the creative.
3 Google previews Meridian GeoX + Studio + Data Manager map view
Ahead of Google Marketing Live 2026, Google previewed three new measurement products: Meridian GeoX (a geo-experiments layer that flows results back into Meridian to calibrate the broader MMM), Meridian Studio (a Google Cloud-powered enterprise platform for teams running high-volume marketing mix models), and a new Data Manager map view that visualizes data flowing in from BigQuery, Drive, HubSpot, and Shopify. GeoX testing begins later this year.
This is Google saying MMM is no longer a quarterly slide deck — it's continuous, calibrated, and Cloud-native. For agencies, the implication is that incrementality work is moving in-house at the brand. For marketers, if your MMM still ships as a PDF once a quarter, you're already two product cycles behind. Measurement just became a real-time engineering function, not a forecasting deliverable.
4 TikTok shuts down Notes on May 8 — pushes users to Lemon8
TikTok is retiring its Instagram-style Notes app today, May 8, less than a year after launching the photo-sharing experiment in Canada, Australia, and Vietnam. Users are being redirected to ByteDance-owned Lemon8, which offers similar functionality. TikTok said the decision "was not made lightly" and is encouraging Notes users to download and save their data before shutdown.
ByteDance just admitted Lemon8 is its actual Instagram play, not a side bet. For brands debating Notes as a content channel: stop. The real question is whether ByteDance can finally make Lemon8 click in the U.S. now that it's consolidating attention there. The bigger lesson for platform strategy: ByteDance is willing to kill a one-year-old product to protect its top creator app — and so should you.
5 Walmart's Marty + Sparky put agents on both sides of the buy
Walmart Connect rolled out Marty, an agentic AI advertising assistant that builds campaigns, sets bids, picks keywords, and adjusts in real time via natural-language chat. It's going broadly available to all brands buying search ads in H1 2026. At the same time, Walmart confirmed it's testing ads inside Sparky, its consumer-facing AI shopping agent. Walmart says 81% of surveyed shoppers have already used Sparky to check product availability before buying. Walmart also disclosed its Automated Creative Generation (ACG) tool has cut median creative production time by 80%.
Walmart just made the agent both the buyer and the planner. Marty is the advertiser's agent; Sparky is the shopper's. Brands now have to win against Sparky AND optimize through Marty — the same playbook Amazon ran with Rufus, but on a faster timeline. Retail media is going agentic on both ends of the funnel, and the brands that figure out how to be ranked, picked, and bought by an agent are going to lap the brands still optimizing for human search.
6 Highspot ships GTM Agent + a Maturity Model in Spring Launch '26
Highspot's Spring Launch '26, unveiled May 4, introduces GTM Agent — an agentic AI layer that connects signals across CRM activity, buyer engagement, content usage, training progress, and meeting insights into role-specific actions for marketing, enablement, and revenue ops. It ships with a Highspot MCP Server and native integrations with OpenAI, Anthropic, and Microsoft Copilot. Highspot also published a "GTM Maturity Model" prescribing how revenue teams should evolve from siloed execution to AI-driven systems.
Sales enablement just rebranded itself as "revenue execution" — and it's the next CRM frontier. Highspot is selling the bigger promise: don't just track signals, take action on them. For marketers, the implication is that content effectiveness becomes a measurable input to deal velocity, not a vibe metric. The maturity model itself is also a smart move: it gives every CRO a chart they can show the board to justify a bigger Highspot expansion.
7 TikTok tests Footnotes — its take on Community Notes
TikTok is testing Footnotes, a feature that lets users add context to videos — mirroring X's Community Notes and Meta's recent move toward user-led moderation. The rollout sits alongside other accessibility updates: alt text on photos, increased contrast, bold text support, and TikTok's AI Alive (which turns static images into videos inside Stories).
The platforms are quietly converging on user-led moderation as a content-policy layer. For brands and creators, the practical effect is that exaggerated claims will get flagged in-line, faster than your legal team can respond. The new media literacy for advertisers: don't make a claim you can't immediately back up, especially in performance creative or partnership content. Footnotes will be the new Snopes — except instant, native, and on TikTok.
8 Cannes Lions names its 2026 Shortlisting Jury — first-ever African and Pacific representation
On May 7, Cannes Lions announced its 2026 Shortlisting Jury for the festival running June 22–26 in Cannes. This year's lineup features first-ever jurors from Ethiopia, Namibia, and Zimbabwe, plus expanded Pacific representation. The Shortlisting Jury determines which work makes the global shortlist that gets judged on stage and awarded.
Cannes spent two decades being a "Western creative" festival. This jury composition is a deliberate signal that the industry's idea of what wins at Cannes is being rebuilt from the outside in. For agencies submitting work in 2026: the work that travels will get measured against a wider creative standard, not just New York / London / São Paulo taste. For brands, this is the first year the bar for "Cannes-worthy" globally-relevant creative actually matches the audience map.
9 Marketing Brew: creators are joining the C-suite
Marketing Brew documented a fast-growing trend on May 4: brands are minting creator C-suite titles. T-Mobile made Druski "Chief Switching Officer"; the NFL named Dhar Mann "Chief Kindness Officer" for the Super Bowl; Katjes named Jake Shane "Chief Creative Officer"; and Diet Coke promoted superfan Kristen Hollingshaus to "Director of Diet Coke Breaks." The titles are part marketing, part PR stunt — and budget-effective compared to a year-long media spend.
The CMO role is fragmenting into "comms-led creator titles" that buy a press cycle on top of audience overlap. The honest read: when it works (Druski to T-Mobile), it's because the creator's existing demo IS the brand's target. When it doesn't, it's a stunt that lasts one news cycle. For brands considering the move: the test isn't "is this creator famous?" — it's "do their fans buy what we sell?" The opposite trade is mid.
10 Roblox's new ad rules took effect May 4 — and a 2027 take rate is coming
Roblox's overhauled advertising policies became mandatory on May 4. All paid brand integrations must now be registered with Roblox before campaigns go live, promotional assets must be submitted for moderation, ads served to under-13s must be COPPA-compliant, and rewarded ads are banned for that age group. Starting in 2027, Roblox will take a share of revenue from in-game brand sponsorships. Registration tools went live April 15 ahead of mandatory adoption.
This is Roblox formalizing the boundary between "creative collaboration" and "media buy." The 2027 revenue cut is the bigger story: it turns Roblox from a brand canvas into a real ad business with a take rate, like YouTube or TikTok Shop. Brands running Roblox experiences need a media plan and a legal review now — not an enthusiastic studio brief. The good news: the formalization signals Roblox is ready to be a measurable, governable channel for the next tier of brand spend.
The throughline
The martech landscape stopped growing for the first time in 15 years. The reason is in every other story above: AI agents are eating the stack from creative to checkout. ChatGPT is now an Adobe-governed media channel. Walmart's agent is buying its own ads. Highspot is turning sales enablement into revenue execution. Google is making MMM continuous. Roblox is putting a take rate on brand deals. TikTok killed an app to focus its bet, and added Footnotes to keep claims honest.
If you read these as 10 separate stories, you'll miss the punchline: the tools are consolidating because the workflows are getting absorbed into agents. The brands that win the next 12 months won't have the most martech — they'll have the cleanest data, the sharpest creative governance, and an answer to one question: what does your agent do that nobody else's can?