What marketers need to know about the AI and martech landscape

2024 martech landscape

Each year, Scott Brinker of chiefmartec.com releases an updated graphic of the martech landscape. Astoundingly, more than 3,000 products have been added to the landscape this year, which represents a 27.8 per cent growth compared to last year. 

This increase can be largely attributed to the emergence of new applications of AI. In the State of Martech 2024 report, Scott Brinker notes that “nearly every major martech vendor has added generative AI features into their products.” The convergence of martech and AI represents a significant evolution in how businesses are approaching marketing and data. The integration of AI into martech tools enhances their capabilities, allowing for more sophisticated data analysis, predictive analytics and personalized marketing strategies.

With rapid advancement and development of AI, the martech landscape is getting increasingly complicated. The recent explosion of AI in the martech space underscores the need for deeper examination of this sector within the broader ecosystem. 

Extension to MAD landscape

While doing a deeper dive into the AI landscape, I came across Matt Turck’s visualization of the Machine Learning, Artificial Intelligence, and Data (MAD) landscape. This landscape helps to better understand the components of an AI ecosystem.

In his article explaining the 2024 MAD landscape, Matt notes that we are currently in the third “AI hype cycle.” This is largely driven by the explosion of generative AI since November 2022. The 2023 landscape had 1,416 logos, but in 2024, this increased to a staggering 2,011. Over 500 new logos were added in just one year!

Interpreting the MAD landscape

The MAD landscape has nine categories, and almost 100 sub-categories. One of the challenges of AI is its broad definition, which means many things to different people. The landscape helps categorize and make sense of this very complex ecosystem.

Ultimately, to do applied AI activation at scale, there’s a lot of components to connect. The MAD landscape has three overarching components:

• Data infrastructure – the core and foundation of AI
• Analytics, machine learning and artificial intelligence – to analyze and visualize data
• Applications – including enterprise, horizontal and industry, to help make sense of data

Matt describes the symbiotic relationship between the three core components, emphasizing the importance of integration to maximize the benefits of AI.

Tekside’s AI “Stackie” experience

To get started with AI integration in your business, you have to define a problem to solve, or identify an opportunity to be harnessed – this will serve as your use case for AI. Then, start to think about how AI can be a part of your solution. I recommend leveraging as many open source (no cost) tools as possible, and focusing on building a configured solution with best-of-breed tools. To be strategic about AI, you should create your own ecosystem – or as Scott Brinker calls it, a “Stackie.”
 
What can this actually look like for a real company?

At Tekside.io, we are currently working in seven of nine categories, and we’ve made investments in 10 sub-categories. As a small agency servicing mid-size clients, we need fundamental tools. We don’t need lots – we just need the core – which is why we’re covering a large range of categories, but without extensive depth. We look for tools that bring proven value, such as applications for market research, competitive analysis and coding. We’re working with some clients on small projects, which is providing exposure to AI tools and helping staff enhance skills and knowledge. Further, it’s helping us build our own AI ecosystem, tailored to our specific needs.

The future of AI in martech

As AI continues to evolve, its impact on the martech landscape will grow. Companies that embrace AI will have a competitive edge, utilizing advanced tools to gain deeper insights, optimize marketing campaigns and improve customer experiences. By understanding and leveraging developments in the martech and MAD landscape, businesses can stay ahead of the curve, harnessing the power of AI to drive their marketing insights and achieve their goals.