AI in Marketing Has a Trust Problem — Karla Wentworth Explains Why

AI in marketing was supposed to be the silver bullet. Instead, for many brands, it’s turning into a double-edged sword. Take this: nearly a quarter of CMOs admit they lost customers in the past year due to martech failures. That’s not a software glitch, that’s a strategic breakdown.

Behind the glossy dashboards and billion-dollar martech investments, something isn’t working. Teams are betting heavily on AI tools and expansive stacks, but instead of clarity, they’re facing chaos: misaligned systems, underused functionality, and customer-facing errors that erode trust at scale.

A recent survey by Intermedia Global (IMG) of 250 UK C-suite marketing leaders makes it plain:

• 93% reported customer-facing issues linked to AI tools.
• Up to 60% of martech functionality sits idle.

The message is clear: AI in marketing isn’t failing because of the technology itself—it’s failing because of how organizations deploy, govern, and understand it.

To separate hype from hard truth, CTO Magazine sat down with Karla Wentworth, Chief Strategy Officer at Intermedia Global Ltd.

In this candid conversation, Wentworth explains why martech misfires are costing customers, why AI is creating as many headaches as solutions, and what real success looks like when we imagine marketing stacks with discipline, not just dollars.

[Image Source: Intermedia Global Ltd]

Karla explains why marketers are losing customers, not because of faulty technology but because of how it’s being implemented, mismanaged, and misunderstood.

Karla, thanks for joining us. When I went through the report, one stat jumped out immediately: 24% of CMOs lost customers last year because of martech errors. That’s not just inefficiency; it’s direct business damage. What’s going wrong here? Is the technology failing, or is it something else?

Karla Wentworth: Well, it’s definitely not a technology problem. So technology is never the problem in this; it’s more of a well. The impact is a customer experience failure, but because Martech sits at the front line of how we actually talk to and target customers, it’s the last line of defence.

When something goes wrong before we interact with the customer, the customer will feel it directly. But most of these errors don’t stem from the technology. The tech isn’t faulty; it might not be integrated well, but it could also be poorly.

Implemented, but actually, it’s probably more inadequate processes. It’s probably marketers who are trying to be data scientists or technical experts who are trying to write code or do things that are not their core skill set. They’re campaign managers, not technologists.

You know, so what you’ve got now is marketing people who did degrees in marketing, who wanted to be creative, who wanted to write great headlines that attracted customers, and great visuals that stood out against the competition. They’re sitting behind pieces of technology, trying to get their campaigns out the door.

And that’s predominantly where some of the the most of the areas are coming from. Is that kind of square peg round hole, you know a marketer trying to be a data scientist or or a technical expert.

So it’s not the tech breaking; it’s marketers being stretched into tech roles for which they weren’t trained. That makes a lot of sense. The report also says 93% of marketers ran into customer-facing issues tied to AI. For years, AI’s been hyped as the future of marketing. But here it’s creating problems. What kind of issues are you seeing?

Wentworth: AI has dominated marketing conversations for the last few years. First, we were told AI is coming. Then, how to implement it? Now, increasingly, I’m hearing about the problems it’s causing.

AI tools were rushed into marketing stacks without proper integration or governance. There’s been a clash between tech teams saying, “We’re not ready,” and CMOs pushing, “We need AI—it’s what everyone’s doing.” The excitement has driven investment, but companies aren’t stopping to check how these tools connect with existing systems or if teams are trained properly.

As a result, nearly half of these incidents become recurring, systematic issues. Instead of simplifying, AI often adds complexity. Marketers aren’t technologists; they haven’t been trained in how AI, especially self-learning systems, actually work. Vendors promote them as intuitive, which helps sell tools, but gives teams a false sense that they don’t need training. The result? Marketers are managing powerful tech without the support or skills they need.

Wow, so AI is creating extra complexity rather than simplifying things. So, is this really a structural issue? Do you think it’s more about skill gaps, leadership silos, or something else? Is it the people and the setup? Where’s the real breakdown happening?

Wentworth: I think it’s process and leadership issues masquerading as tech problems. People often assume the tools are broken, but really, it’s about strategy and ownership.

I don’t want to blame CMOs directly; they’ve been on their own journey. Remember, 25–30 years ago, there wasn’t even social media. So this shift has been overwhelming, even for them. It’s hard for leaders to admit that the tech is getting away from them because their credibility is on the line.

Our report showed that a third of leaders say IT owns martech, a third say marketing does, and a third don’t know. That lack of clarity is dangerous. Leadership needs to step up and decide who owns the technology, how it’s managed, and what it’s responsible for.

If this were a call center or sales team, we’d invest heavily in training. But we don’t do the same for marketers using tools that go straight to customers. That gap in leadership and process is where things fall apart.

Got it. The report also mentions “martech bloat.” Do you see AI as the main disruptor, or are there other drivers behind this complexity?

Wentworth: The complexity has grown massively in the last 10–20 years, mainly because of the explosion of technology. The pandemic accelerated this; vendors had time to develop and release products, and we suddenly saw a flood of tools.

But what hasn’t kept up is training or alignment. There hasn’t been enough time or appreciation of how these tools affect customers and the marketing teams who must use them.

When I started in marketing 20–25 years ago, we just wanted to be the “crayon team”—doing creative work. Fast-forward, and now we’re dealing with over 15,000 martech tools. That shift happened faster than organizations could prepare their people for it.

That’s a fair point. From your leadership experience, do you see marketers burning out because of all this AI adoption and tool overload?

Wentworth: Yes, I’ve seen two extremes. Some companies have gone into complete lockdown, banning AI entirely. That’s unrealistic, because AI is already embedded in most of their tools, often without them realizing it. These lockdowns usually come from risk-averse organizations like financial institutions or charities, where compliance failures could be devastating.

On the other side, some companies throw everything at AI without a strategy. I’ve been in boardrooms where CMOs simply asked, “What are we doing with AI? Here’s the budget, go do something.” That’s dangerous because it leads to adopting AI for AI’s sake, distracting teams from actual business goals.

The right approach is somewhere in the middle. AI is incredibly influential, but it requires time, thought, and careful implementation. If companies rush it, their very business could be at risk.

Given all the hype, what do you think is the most overrated aspect of AI in marketing? And what’s actually been useful so far?

Wentworth: As a technology consultant, I’m excited about AI, but the way it was introduced to marketers was almost inappropriate. In the early days, we saw flashy demos—like blinking twice to book a hair appointment, which weren’t relevant to day-to-day marketing. For 12–18 months, marketers were wowed but didn’t understand the practical impact on their jobs.

Now, the real value is becoming clearer. AI is making marketers more efficient by taking away the repetitive, time-consuming tasks: reconciling data, automating workflows, or analyzing dashboards. The problem is that marketers haven’t been taught to identify where they’re wasting time, so they don’t always apply AI to the areas where it would help most.

So should marketers rely on productivity tools to identify waste, or should companies improve processes internally to figure that out?

Wentworth: It’s a bit of both. My consultancy spends a lot of time doing waste and pain-point analysis with marketing teams. We’re Lean Six Sigma trained, which comes from manufacturing quality control, and we apply it to marketing processes. It’s not glamorous, but it reveals inefficiencies that add up to weeks or months of lost effort.

For example, searching for assets across multiple tools, waiting for approvals stuck in systems, or reconciling conflicting dashboards. These are huge drains.

So yes, organizations should start with process reviews, ideally with external support to spot inefficiencies. But I also think there’s potential for new technical solutions to help identify and eliminate waste. That’s a real gap in the market.

Let me push back a bit, cold emailing is everywhere, and everyone’s automating it. But realistically, isn’t this just a waste of money or even risky for marketers? Can workflow automation really deliver, or is it creating more problems than it solves?

Wentworth: Cold emailing is exactly that, cold. You’re reaching out to people you know very little about, which makes it costly and often inefficient. While it can generate some revenue, it’s not the most effective strategy.

What’s changing is that AI allows us to learn even small details about “cold” prospects, like their geography, age, or industry. Even tiny bits of data can make targeting much smarter. So yes, automation can help, but only if marketers take the time upfront to define what “good” looks like and build around that, instead of just blasting out campaigns.

With all this pressure to chase the latest tools, AI hype, and martech innovations, how are marketers supposed to actually drive innovation without completely disrupting or damaging the customer experience? Isn’t there a real risk that in trying to be ‘cutting-edge,’ they end up creating more problems than solutions?

Wentworth: We’ve invested billions over the last decade in customer experience and proven that it drives results. But we haven’t invested in what I call “marketing experience”—the experience of marketers themselves.

If your marketing team is confused, untrained, or unhappy with their tools, the quality of the customer experience will suffer. Marketing experience means looking at every touchpoint—strategy, tools, processes, data, content, execution, and analysis, and identifying where friction exists.

Until companies do that, they’ll keep relying on “sticky plasters” like new email systems or CRMs, without solving the root problem. The best customer experiences come from marketing teams that feel supported and empowered.

If I may ask, with Gen Z and millennials now joining marketing teams, they’ve grown up with technology, but does that actually make them more effective, or are they just less patient with broken systems? From what you’ve seen, how does this play out day-to-day?

Wentworth: Absolutely. Younger marketers are digital natives; they’ve been spoon-fed technology from the start. They’re more willing to learn advanced tools, coding, or integrations compared to older generations like mine, who grew up with little or no tech in marketing.

But here’s the flip side: younger generations won’t tolerate being in broken environments. If strategy and processes don’t support them, they’ll leave quickly. Hybrid working makes this even easier; they can find jobs anywhere in the world.

The challenge is bridging generational gaps. Older CMOs may not fully understand how younger marketers think, while younger employees may not understand the patience required to fix systemic issues. Honest conversations are needed to create a supportive environment for everyone.

Karla, thank you so much for sharing these insights; they’ve been incredibly enlightening. To wrap up, let me put it bluntly: with stacks bloated, AI misfiring, and generational gaps widening, what does “success” in martech even look like right now?

Wentworth: I’ve seen it in organisations very rarely, but I’ve seen success in organisations where they align their tech stack to exactly what their strategy is now. The difficulty of that comes from the fact that as soon as you implement technology, it’s never quick; it’s never that you say I want some new technology, it will be in next week.

It can sometimes take 12 to 18 months, and then the strategy becomes outdated. Because the world is moving so very quickly, the strategy starts to outpace the technology solutions, and suddenly, they’re left with a piece of technology they’ve paid a lot of money for that doesn’t actually satisfy their new ideas and plans. But that’s the issue.

I want companies to go right back to their strategy and keep thinking of simplicity. Try not to overcomplicate your technology and what it can do for you.

There is a stat that something like 60% of functionalities are not used in the technology that marketers buy. Well, I say that’s OK, provided you have decided not to use it.

There are tools now that overlap each of these capabilities. There’s functionality; each vendor will say they’ve got the same functionality, and they haven’t. You just need to decide which tool you’re going to use for which process and then document what you’re not going to use. And that’s okay, provided it meets your strategy. Stay focused on your strategy and make.

Sure, you’re agile enough to move with future demands because this world will not slow down. The customer will not slow down; everything that evolution AI is not going to slow down. So if you can’t create an agile tech stack where you can move and make changes, I think they’re the companies that will struggle to move forward.

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