The Martech Landscape in 2026: Peak Martech and Leaner Stacks
The martech landscape stopped growing in 2026. See the chiefmartec counts, Gartner stack utilisation data and a practical plan to rationalise your stack.
For fifteen years the marketing technology landscape grew almost every year. In May 2026 it stopped. Scott Brinker's 2026 Marketing Technology Landscape counts 15,505 products, only 121 more than the 15,384 in 2025, a net rise of 0.79% that he describes as "effectively flat" 1. In 2011 the same map held about 150 products 1.
The headline number hides a lot of movement. New tools are still arriving, old ones are disappearing, and AI is changing what each category does. For marketing leaders the practical question is no longer "what else should we buy?" but "what are we actually using, and what should we keep?"
What the 2026 landscape numbers show
The flat total is the result of two large flows cancelling each other out. Brinker's figures for the last two editions:
| Measure | 2025 landscape | 2026 landscape |
|---|---|---|
| Total products | 15,384 | 15,505 |
| Products added | 2,489 | 1,488 |
| Products removed | 1,211 | 1,367 |
| Net growth | +9% | +0.79% |
Additions fell 40% year on year while removals rose 13% 1. In 2025 Brinker had already noted that the first big wave of martech products was "finally" consolidating, with two-thirds of that year's removals founded between 2010 and 2020 2. In 2026 that pattern continued: 51.7% of exits came from the 2010-2019 SaaS cohort, and removals were concentrated among small firms, with 45.5% in the US$1 million to US$10 million revenue band 1. Brinker's summary is blunt: these companies "found enough traction to become real businesses, but not enough to become inevitable ones" 1.
Where the market is still growing
A flat total does not mean a static market. Some categories grew strongly between 2025 and 2026 1:
- CMS and web experience management: up 21.4% (504 to 612 products)
- Ecommerce platforms and carts: up 19.9% (547 to 656)
- Mobile and web analytics: up 11.3%
- iPaaS and data integration: up 8.0%
- Governance, compliance and privacy: up 7.1%
Writing for MarTech, Frans Riemersma groups categories into four states. CMS, workflow, ecommerce and iPaaS are growing because AI is changing their core job. Content, collaboration and personalisation are in "renewal", with high inflow and high outflow. CRM, customer service and customer intelligence (including cloud data warehouses) are stable. Chat, video and email are decaying as their functions are absorbed into broader platforms 3.
The growth in integration and governance tools is worth noting. As stacks become more AI-driven, the plumbing that moves and governs data becomes more valuable, not less.
Consolidation from the top, AI-native tools from below
Brinker describes a squeeze on the middle of the market: incumbents bundle AI features into existing suites, AI-native start-ups attack from below, and buyers rationalise what they already own 1.
The large suites are buying data capability to support AI agents. Salesforce completed its acquisition of Informatica on 18 November 2025, saying Informatica's catalogue, integration, governance and master data management would give its platform a unified data foundation for agentic AI. Marc Benioff summed up the logic: "Data and context is the true fuel of Agentforce" 4.
Meanwhile AI agents are spreading quickly but unevenly. According to Brinker and Riemersma's Martech for 2026 report, 90.3% of marketing organisations use AI agents in some capacity, yet only 23.3% have deployed them in full production 3. Their State of Martech 2026 report, based on a February 2026 survey of 208 marketing and marketing operations leaders, found that the share of respondents with a formal generative AI policy rose from 52% in 2024 to 73% 5. It also found that organisations often build and buy for the same use case rather than choosing one or the other 5.
Brinker adds a new audience to plan for: machines acting on behalf of people, such as AI search assistants and shopping agents. On owned channels, brands are deploying their own agents as guides, advisers and sales assistants, which makes "context engineering" (what data, tools and guardrails an agent has) a core martech discipline 1.
The utilisation problem has not gone away
The strongest argument for rationalisation is how little of the stack teams actually use. Gartner's earlier research showed utilisation falling from 58% of martech capabilities in 2020 to 42% in 2022 and 33% in 2023 6. Gartner analyst Benjamin Bloom said at the time that "marketers tend to acquire new technologies without a systematic approach for adopting them" 6.
Gartner's 2025 Marketing Technology Survey puts utilisation at 49%, which is better than the 2023 low but still means around half of paid-for capability sits idle 7. Gartner also reports that martech accounts for nearly 22% of total marketing spend and that only 15% of organisations qualify as high performers that meet strategic goals and show positive ROI 7.
Budgets give little room for waste. In its 2025 CMO Spend Survey, Gartner found marketing budgets flat at 7.7% of company revenue 8. Its 2026 survey of 401 marketing leaders found budgets at 7.8% of revenue, with an average 15.3% of marketing budgets allocated to AI initiatives, yet only 30% of CMOs said their organisation had mature AI readiness 9. In other words, new AI spend is arriving on top of a stack that is already under-used.
How to rationalise a martech stack
Gartner's own guidance is to measure activated capabilities rather than vendor count, run regular audits, ask vendors to demonstrate value through competitive proofs of concept instead of traditional RFPs, and favour composable tools that connect through APIs 7. A practical sequence:
- Audit real usage. Pull login and feature-usage data from each tool, not the seat count in the contract, and compare it with what you pay. This is the "activated capabilities" view Gartner recommends 7.
- Map overlap by job. Group tools by the job they do. Where several tools claim the same job, such as attribution, forms or email, you have your first candidates for cuts.
- Score each tool. Rate utilisation, overlap, downstream data dependency and switching cost. Low use, high overlap and low dependency is a clean cut; low use with high data dependency usually means fix, not remove.
- Trace data before you switch anything off. A rarely used tool may be the only link between two systems, or the record of consent and suppression.
- Group use cases by shared systems. Gartner suggests organising use cases around the shared platforms they depend on, such as a customer data platform, rather than only by feasibility and value 7. When tools read from a common data layer, replacing an application carries far less risk.
- Repeat on a schedule. Gartner advises regular audits to track progress 7; a quarterly review stops the stack from quietly re-bloating.
When assessing AI features, ask whether a capability now bundled into a suite you already pay for makes a point solution redundant. Given the churn rates above, also check the financial health and roadmap of smaller vendors before renewing multi-year contracts 1.
Key takeaways
- The 2026 martech landscape is flat at 15,505 products, with 1,488 additions and 1,367 removals 1.
- Growth has shifted to CMS, ecommerce, analytics, integration and governance, while email, chat and video functions are being absorbed into platforms 13.
- AI agents are widely tested but rarely in full production (23.3%) 3.
- Gartner puts martech utilisation at 49% in 2025, with martech taking nearly 22% of marketing spend 7.
- Rationalisation works best when it starts from usage data and a shared data layer, not from vendor lists.
What this means for your brand
Treat 2026 as a year to simplify before adding. Start with a usage audit and a map of which tools hold critical data, then retire overlapping point solutions where your core platforms now offer equivalent AI features. Invest in the data foundation (a warehouse, clean identity and consent records) because every AI agent you deploy will depend on it. Finally, set a quarterly review so the stack you rationalise this year does not quietly grow back.
Sources
- 2026 Marketing Technology Landscape Supergraphic: Peak Martech Achieved! (Maybe) - chiefmartec, May 2026
- 2025 Marketing Technology Landscape Supergraphic: 100X growth since 2011, but now with AI - chiefmartec, May 2025
- Martech 2026: AI drives a major industry reset - MarTech, May 2026
- Salesforce Completes Acquisition of Informatica - Salesforce, November 2025
- State of Martech 2026 - Scott Brinker and Frans Riemersma, May 2026
- Gartner Survey Finds 63% of Marketing Leaders Plan to Invest in Generative AI in the Next 24 Months - Gartner, August 2023
- Boost Martech Performance and Prepare for AI - Gartner, 2025
- Gartner 2025 CMO Spend Survey Reveals Marketing Budgets Have Flatlined at 7.7% of Overall Company Revenue - Gartner, May 2025
- CMOs are buying AI that their organization isn't ready for - MarTech, May 2026
Figures and product details are as reported by the sources listed, at the time of writing. Platforms change quickly, so check the latest documentation before acting on any single number.