Business 2 min read By Alice Ashford
Forrester forecasts marketers will cut a third of AI projects next year
Forrester expects marketing teams to scale back roughly a third of their AI projects next year as finance departments scrutinise budgets under usage-based pricing. Marketing leaders are being urged to audit their technology stacks before the chief financial officer makes the decision for them.
Marketing leaders are being warned that a third of their artificial intelligence projects could be scaled back next year, and that they should decide which ones before finance teams do. Research firm Forrester expects marketers to cut back on a substantial share of their AI initiatives as budgets come under tighter control.
The pressure is coming from a shift in how software is bought. As usage-based pricing replaces flat per-seat software licences, finance teams are taking a closer look at enterprise AI spending. Costs that once sat in predictable annual contracts now rise and fall with how heavily tools are used, making them harder to justify in a budget review.
For marketing leaders, the advice is to act first. Auditing the existing stack, identifying which AI tools deliver measurable value and which are used sparingly, lets a department make its own case for funding rather than having cuts imposed from outside. The alternative is that the chief financial officer makes those choices on the basis of spending figures alone, without the context a marketing team can provide.
The warning fits a wider pattern in corporate technology. Organisations have rushed to adopt AI over the past few years, often piloting several tools at once. As those pilots move toward full-scale use, companies are beginning to ask which investments justify their running costs. Forrester's forecast suggests that this reckoning is now reaching the marketing function.
Marketing leaders who want to keep their projects funded will need to show how each one connects to revenue, customer outcomes or efficiency. Projects that cannot be tied to those measures are the most likely candidates for the reduction Forrester anticipates, and identifying them early leaves room to redirect spending toward the work that performs best.
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