Mia Lefferdink
Top of funnel, middle of funnel, bottom of funnel: each stage now has tool categories that did not exist in the 2021 stack. Part 3 of our marketing automation series surveys the tool layers, calls out which categories collapsed into the platform, and which still warrant a point tool.
Zoe
Five capability blocks separate a 2026-class marketing automation platform from a 2021 one: AI-tuned content generation, cross-engine benchmarking, machine-readability validation, brand entity governance, and AI-source attribution. Here is each capability broken down and what to demand in a vendor RFP.
Zoe
Marketing automation hit near-universal adoption in 2026. The interesting question is not whether teams are using a platform but whether the platform handles the new work AI-mediated discovery has created.