Marketing’s next era is here and Adobe wants CMOs to claim it

As artificial intelligence reshapes how brands connect with customers, Adobe’s Katrina Troughton is urging marketers to step into a broader, more strategic role - one that fuses creativity, technology and trust to orchestrate customer experiences at scale.

The vice president and managing director of Adobe ANZ believes the convergence of AI, creativity and customer experience presents a rare opportunity for marketers to reassert themselves as the true growth engine of the business, but only if they move quickly.

Speaking to Marketing-Interactive at Adobe’s Sydney Summit this week, Troughton called this moment “a massive opportunity” for CMOs to shift from being brand stewards to orchestrators of digital experiences at scale - powered by AI but grounded in human insight and trust.

"CMOs are the owners of customer trust,” she said. “And they’re increasingly expected to be the owners of business growth.”

“They should not be cut out of the conversation, they should be key contributors and part of the management group steering future growth.”

This idea of orchestration, Adobe’s framework for AI-powered customer journeys that are personal, responsive, and scalable, was a recurring theme throughout the summit. It's also a strategic pillar of Adobe’s Experience Cloud and Firefly creative tools, which are now being embedded with agentic AI capabilities: systems that can interpret user intent, make decisions and take autonomous actions.

For CMOs, it means AI can now do more than assist. It can help execute.

We are now in this era where I do think bringing creativity, marketing and AI together is really going to help us to transform customer experiences. AI is accelerating and expanding creative possibilities for everyone.

That evolution is already playing out inside Adobe’s platform ecosystem. Since launching Firefly in March 2023, more than 27 billion images have been created using Adobe’s generative AI tools. Across its products, including Photoshop, GenStudio and the Adobe Experience Platform, AI is helping marketers generate content, create audiences, run performance campaigns, and streamline production workflows.

Troughton said the shift to agentic AI is now accelerating those capabilities - and expectations.

“AI isn’t new. Adobe’s had machine learning in our tools for over a decade, but the pace of change has stepped up dramatically,” she says. “The key now is orchestration. It’s not just about curating every moment yourself, it’s about how you organise teams, tools and data across the organisation to deliver the right experience at the right time.”

At the core of that ambition is the fusion of marketing and creativity, which Adobe argues is not just a productivity issue but a strategic one.

“Creativity has never been more important,” Troughton says. “There’s an explosion of content and the ability to grab attention has become the currency of the day.”

“Marketers aren’t just expected to retain or acquire customers - they’re now being asked to create new digital experiences, open up new revenue streams and drive innovation. To do that well, they need to bring creativity and marketing closer together.”

That core message of marketing is moving up the value chain is especially relevant in an era where AI leadership roles are now emerging across banks, telcos and enterprise firms, sometimes outside the traditional marketing remit.

Recent appointments at NAB, Westpac and CommBank have seen AI and digital chiefs report directly to CEOs, raising questions about whether marketing is being edged out of critical transformation decisions.

Troughton doesn’t think it should be.

“CMOs need to be right in the middle of these conversations. They already work closely with CIOs and tech teams. But now, it’s about connecting silos across legal, creative, MarTech and product.”

“Some organisations are just hoping that collaboration happens. But if CMOs take ownership of orchestrating that collaboration, if they step up, that’s where the opportunity is.”

Part of that step-up, she argues, involves knowing where and how to test new capabilities and ensure the right governance structures are in place.

“You don’t want to start testing agentic AI on your largest client account,” she says. “Start internally. Find low-risk use cases. Build confidence and keep human oversight in place.”

AI on the rise

According to Adobe’s latest research, agentic AI is already reshaping consumer expectations in Australia. While the term itself remains unfamiliar to many, the behaviours it enables are gaining traction fast.

“One in five Australians are already using AI agents - and among millennials, adoption is even higher,” said Jeremy Wood, Adobe’s Head of Solution and GTM Strategy for APAC & Japan. “An additional 42% of respondents said they expect to start using agents soon. What’s more telling is that even among those who hadn’t heard the term ‘agentic AI’, once we explained the concept, many were immediately drawn to its potential.”

That potential includes high-demand use cases like product comparisons (63%), finding deals and completing purchases (57%), and receiving personalised creative suggestions (55%).

“For brands, this is a critical inflection point,” Wood added. “As people become accustomed to smart, seamless experiences embedded in their everyday lives, they’re signalling a readiness for the next wave. Just as marketers begin to adjust to AI-assisted buying journeys, the landscape is already shifting again.”

Troughton added this new wave of consumer behaviour demands a new level of customer experience design - one built for an AI-powered world.

“We’ve seen a dramatic shift in just three months,” Troughton says. “It’s no longer just about smart answers - people want AI that can act. That changes consumer expectations, and that means the experiences brands deliver must change too.”

Adobe’s focus now is helping businesses design for an AI-powered world while preserving human oversight, brand integrity and customer trust.

“AI isn’t going to be creative. That’s what we bring to it,” she says. “This is what humans add to the equation - understanding, empathy, creative spark. That’s why creativity matters now more than ever.”

“What we’re seeing is this incredible opportunity to bring creativity, marketing and AI together - and finally scale personalisation in a way we never imagined we could.”