Published on: May 27, 2026
Mumbai, 27 May 2026:
On World Marketing Day, The CMO Assembly today launched The India CMO Index 2026, a first-of-its-kind annual benchmark that captures the operating reality of India’s senior marketing leadership.
Built from anonymous responses of 121 CMOs and senior marketing decision-makers across 11 industries, the report was created to move beyond polished industry optimism and ask a more uncomfortable question: what do CMOs say when there is no stage, no panel and no judgement? The answer is clear: India’s CMOs are not struggling with ambition. They are struggling with the conditions around execution.
The central finding of the report is stark: India’s CMOs are gaining influence faster than their organisations are building the systems to sustain it. While 85% of CMOs say their influence has increased over the last three years, only 21% feel very high confidence in their current marketing setup. Just 7% say measurement is actually sorted, and only 12% have AI genuinely embedded in how work gets done.
“Every year, the marketing industry produces a lot of optimistic content about itself. This is not one of those reports,” said Vivek Sheth, Founder, The CMO Assembly. “The India CMO Index was built to document what CMOs actually experience, not what they are expected to say. The data shows a function with more influence, more responsibility and more pressure, but not always the systems, patience or measurement infrastructure needed to do its best work.”
The Index reveals the contradictions now defining Indian marketing leadership: CMOs claim to believe in balanced brand and performance investment, but defend performance first under pressure; they have more influence, but not always more confidence; AI is widely discussed, but rarely embedded; and measurement remains the most persistent unresolved fault line in the function.
One of the report’s sharpest findings is the gap between stated belief and actual budget behaviour. 53% of CMOs say they run balanced brand and performance budgets, yet 44% would defend performance first if budgets were cut by 30% tomorrow.
“The future CMO will not just balance brand and growth, they’ll have to defend patience in a culture addicted to immediacy,” said Samar Kagalwalla, Head – Brand & Marketing, CSB Bank.
The report also finds that 70% of CMOs name short-termism and ROI pressure as their biggest challenge, making the quarterly clock one of the biggest structural pressures facing Indian marketing leaders today.
“Brand building is the compounding interest of marketing — invisible in the short run, irreplaceable in the long run. The real skill is holding both without letting the urgent always override the important.” said Nandita Kamath, CMO – Dairy, Britannia Industries.
“Consumers don’t fall in love with a brand due to performance marketing. They connect with meaning, identity and trust,” said Virat Khullar, Head of Marketing, Hyundai. “During high pressure phases, performance metrics become louder but brands are built on something deeper.”
“What we call performance marketing is really response marketing. The click is downstream of the brand. The question worth asking in 2026 is whether we’re investing in the environments that build that brand — or just the ones that are easiest to measure,” said Deepit Purkayastha, Co-Founder & CEO, Inshorts & Public.
On AI, the Index cuts through the noise. While AI dominates marketing conversation, only 1 in 8 Indian CMOs say it is deeply embedded in workflows. For most organisations, AI is still speeding up existing work rather than changing how marketing decisions are made.
“AI is speeding up execution faster than it’s improving judgment,” said Rahul Karthikeyan, CMO, Scaler. “The next generation of CMOs will be defined by their ability to use AI to scale performance while still protecting the consistency, trust and memory that great brands are built on.”
Measurement remains the deepest open wound. The Index finds that 93% of respondents have meaningful measurement gaps, spanning brand impact, attribution, influencer ROI, incrementality and retention/LTV.
“AI can optimise what you measure. It cannot tell you what deserves to be measured. That judgment still sits with the CMO,” said Darshana Shah, Marketing Leader.
The 2026 report establishes the first baseline for an annual study. Future editions will track whether AI embedment moves beyond experimentation, whether brand investment survives performance pressure, and whether CMO confidence begins to catch up with CMO influence.
Download the full report – Click here
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