I strongly disagree with this.

I even had a “heated” comment exchange with Jon Evans about it.

A CMO is not just another leader.

If CMOs, who literally have “marketing” in their title, stop doing marketing and become “just” leaders, what distinguishes them from any other executive?

How are politics, people, planning and persuasion unique to a CMO?
Aren’t these skills expected from a CFO, CTO, COO, or any leader in general?

Maybe, and I say maybe, only the CEO can afford to be “just” a leader.
Every other C-level executive has a functional responsibility first.

Leadership comes on top.

Leadership is the multiplier.
Functional expertise is the non-negotiable base.
HBR has a piece right on this concept.

Of course, C-level executives don’t do the hands-on work themselves.
But that doesn’t mean they stop doing their function.
A CFO remains an expert in finance.
They still manage the company’s financials and discuss them in depth during investor calls.

The same applies to a CTO.

Nobody has ever argued:
“By the time you become a CFO, you aren’t really doing finance anymore.”

So why should that be true for a CMO?

At the very least, a CMO should define the marketing vision and strategy in detail.
Then delegate implementation to their teams.

A CMO is also the ultimate owner of the brand.
That doesn’t mean micromanaging the brand manager.
It means taking ultimate responsibility, and therefore ownership, of the brand.

If you’re a CEO and apply only these four Ps when hiring your next CMO, you’ll hire a polished corporate politician rather than a marketer.

That is the exact opposite of what marketing needs.
Especially in the Age of AI when change happens at light speed.

I believe this mindset helps explain a brutal gap:

• 43% of CEOs grade their CMOs a “C” or “D” on their ability to drive company growth.
• Only 16% receive an “A”.
• Just 32% of CEOs trust their CMOs, compared with 90% who trust their CFOs.

According to the same Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science study, 54% of CMO roles are misaligned.
Meaning, occupied by the wrong people.

That creates a vicious circle.
Almost any corporate worker can learn to become a good corporate politician.
But that doesn’t mean they can drive growth through marketing.
So they don’t make much impact.

But the less impact they make, the more politics they need to justify their position.
The less impact and the more politics they do, the less their CEOs trust them.

A CMO must be a marketer first, and then become more than that.
But they cannot stop being one.

AI Overviews are turning Google into a free AI chatbot.

Look at this 👇

When AI Overviews appear, users are more likely to leave Google without clicking on any result.

But that's not all.
They're also 10 percentage points more likely to end their browsing session entirely!

It makes sense.
Chrome is the world's most popular browser.
For most users, Google is the default search engine.

They have a question.
They open Chrome.
They type it into the address bar.
They get a satisfactory answer.
They close Chrome.
That's it.

We need to come to terms with the fact that people will increasingly use Google as a free AI chatbot, rather than as a gateway to the web.

Google itself is accelerating this shift by pushing AI Mode as a direct follow-up to AI Overview answers.

In that world, the distinction between SEO and GEO becomes non-sense.
Google is turning into an AI chatbot.
AI chatbots are turning into search engines, ads included, as we're already seeing with ChatGPT.

Byron Sharp is everywhere on my LinkedIn feed lately.

So are Mark Ritson and Les Binet.
It feels like they have always been the "gods" of marketing.

But Google Trends tells a different story.

All three built distinguished careers over decades.
Sharp’s bestselling book "How Brands Grow" was published in 2010.

Yet search interest in all three remained mostly flat until mid-2025.
Then it suddenly jumped.
I have to admit, that’s also roughly when I discovered them.

I don’t know exactly what triggered the surge.
I’d genuinely love to hear your theories in the comments!

But the chart reveals something interesting about online bubbles.
If you asked me today, in August 2026, who the most influential marketing thinkers are, I would probably name these three.

Not necessarily because they are objectively the most influential.
But because my LinkedIn feed has made them omnipresent.

Meanwhile, the likes of Gary Vaynerchuk and Scott Galloway still attract far more search interest. Yes, both have expanded well beyond marketing.
But I still find their views on marketing highly relevant, especially Gary V’s.

And Philip Kotler, the father of modern marketing, remains by far the most searched of them all.

This doesn’t make Sharp, Ritson or Binet any less valuable.
It just shows how quickly a feed can turn experts into "gods".

Your feed is not the world. It’s a bubble.
And sometimes, a very recent one.

Who knows more of what happened in mid-2025?

As someone with both a bachelor’s and a master’s degree in marketing, I can only confirm.
Way too many people in corporate have an opinion on marketing.

Let the marketing professionals do their jobs, just as you let your lawyer do theirs.

Would you connect your bank account with ChatGPT?

Analysing my finances is one of my most common tasks on ChatGPT.
Now, OpenAI is launching direct connections with major financial institutions.
No more uploading spreadsheets, copying and pasting numbers.

It’s a great feature that millions of users will love.

But I’m not going to use it.
At least not yet.

Because connecting ChatGPT directly to my bank accounts crosses a line I’m not comfortable crossing, yet.

And I’d argue many people feel the same.

This information could (and most probably will) be used for advertising.
Or worse, for profiling and intelligence purposes.

I’m (kind of) okay with Big Tech inferring my income and wealth from my online behaviour and chats.

But handing over the raw numbers directly, no thanks.

Let’s see how the product develops.
There may come a time when opting out no longer feels like a realistic choice.
Just as it happened with Google and social media.

Google Search is growing faster than YouTube.

For three consecutive quarters, Search & other ad revenue has outgrown YouTube Ads.

YouTube has long been Alphabet’s growth darling, often outgrowing Search.
It made sense: a newer product, huge ad inventory, lower monetisation.

Not anymore.

And this is mostly because of AI.

AI Overviews unlocked completely new, incremental ad placements within Google Search. Ads can appear within and below AI Overviews with one placement not excluding the other.
Then there are ads in AI Mode too.

Meanwhile, YouTube faces a saturation problem.

I remember when ads were sporadic.
Now virtually every video has one or more: two pre-rolls, often followed by mid-rolls.

Sometimes I use a VPN to browse from the US.
The ad pressure there is insane.

Not by coincidence, Performance Max increasingly favours Search over YouTube.
When I started testing it in 2021, Search accounted for less than half of impressions and clicks. The rest came mostly from Display and YouTube.

Today, our campaigns serve almost exclusively on Search.

I’m not sure what Google’s strategy is.
On one hand, YouTube’s ad inventory is clearly saturated and growth is slowing.
On the other, “Subscriptions, platforms & devices”, which includes YouTube Premium, keeps growing at the same or a higher pace than Search.

In 2025, subscriptions accounted for 33% of YouTube total revenue.
(In Q4 2025, Sundar Pichai said YouTube had surpassed $60B in annual revenue, of which around $40B from ads).

I guess the subscription share will grow further.

I wouldn’t be surprised if users frustrated with YouTube ads were increasingly switching to Premium, moving revenue from one bucket to another.

Personally, I’m a heavy YouTube user. I have been since 2007, I love it.
Living in a small market like Switzerland, I’m still okay with the current number of ads. But for how much longer?

Are ads or subscriptions more profitable?
If anyone in the comments knows the answer, I’d be very interested to discuss it further!

Welcome to conversational ads.

Users can "Ask ChatGPT" about an ad they’ve just seen.

That single button shows why ChatGPT Ads are a completely different beast from search, display or social ads.

It's not just another ad placement,
it’s an entirely new advertising experience.

Sure, it’s very early days.
The feature doesn’t work well yet.

But the direction is clear.
Brands won’t merely show up inside conversations. They’ll take part in them.

Users can ask about prices, compare options, clarify features and potentially take action without ever leaving ChatGPT.

If OpenAI gets this right, ads could create value within the user journey instead of disrupting it and hoping for a click, how it usually happens on display and social.

The upside is insane.

OpenAI’s advertising targets look insane too.
But given the potential value of conversational ads, they may be less unrealistic than they appear.

I’m looking forward to seeing ChatGPT Ads become a fixture in media plans!

Zero-click searches are finally going down.

Hurray!

But wait a second…

Why is my organic traffic still falling?

Because fewer zero-click searches don’t necessarily mean more clicks to your websites.

Users are still clicking, yes.
They’re just not clicking on your results.

AI Overviews may answer many questions without users clicking anywhere.
But many users do keep exploring, especially on desktop.

The problem is where they go next:
Google Images, Google Maps, YouTube, Flights, Hotels, even AI Mode.

In the EU+UK, the share of desktop searches that stayed within Google’s ecosystem nearly doubled:

From 11% in January 2024
To 20.4% in June 2026.

Meanwhile, zero clicks declined.

The two trends move in the exact opposite direction!

And this shift is considerably stronger in the EU+UK than in the US, despite EU regulations targeting Google’s anti-competitive practices.

The zero-click narrative is missing half the story.
Google doesn’t need to stop users from clicking.
It only needs to ensure those clicks never leave Google.

Source: Datos, A Semrush Company, The State of Search reports Q12025-Q22026

Zero-click searches on Google are going down.

Good news for marketers!

Or is it?

Because in the EU/UK, zero clicks and paid clicks on desktop have been moving in almost opposite directions.

Zero clicks share fell, paid clicks' rose.

So where are all those "recovered" clicks going?

To ads. 😅

Want your traffic back?
No problem.
Just pay!

Source: Datos, A Semrush Company, The State of Search reports Q12025-Q22026

Forget AI Overviews.

Google itself is stealing your clicks.

When AI Overviews appear, many users find the direct answer satisfactory and leave without clicking anything.

The zero-click trend has been discussed extensively here and across marketing publications.

But there’s another trend that should concern marketers even more.

Users do click.
They just don’t click on your website.

They go to other Google-owned properties.
Google Images, Google Maps, Flights, Hotels, YouTube, even AI Mode.

Despite all the recent EU regulation, Google is keeping an increasingly large share of searches within its own ecosystem.

In the EU/UK, the shift has accelerated sharply over the past 8–10 months.

In January 2024, 11% of desktop searches led users to remain on Google or visit another Google-owned property.

By June 2026, that share had reached 20.4%.

Nearly double.

Meanwhile, zero-click searches declined.

And that’s the concerning part.

Users are still clicking, engaging and researching.

They’re just increasingly doing it inside Google’s ecosystem, without ever reaching external websites.

My chart covers desktop only, where users are generally more likely to perform longer research sessions and click to external websites.

I don’t have equivalent mobile data, but I suspect the trend there is even stronger.

What to do then?
I’m open to suggestions in the comments!

Source: Datos, A Semrush Company, The State of Search reports