As McKinsey writes, executives who are focused on other priorities are overlooking the relationship between the CMO, the customer and business growth. Many CMOs told McKinsey in a survey they have limited input on strategy, while there’s no agreement between different executives on what measurements equal marketing success. And CMOs—or singular marketing leaders by other titles—are on the decline. Only two-thirds of Fortune 500 companies had CMOs in 2024, according to Spencer Stuart research cited by McKinsey, a 5% decline from 2023. With the rise of omnichannel marketing and business, some companies have added a suite of digital officers to work on marketing, further complicating basic corporate strategy. And in just two years, the number of CEOs who say marketing is clearly defined and understood by their company’s corporate leadership fell by 20%.

In order to get CMOs back in the driver’s seat, the McKinsey report suggests they rebuild relationships and collaborate with other executives. They should work with CEOs to come to common ground about what they do, why it is important, and what needs to be achieved. The value of what CMOs bring to the table, which is often key data about customers and the market in general, needs to be understood by CEOs. But CMOs also need to forge tight bonds with CFOs, coming into alignment about how to track success and how marketing numbers feed into the finances that are important to the company. This kind of relationship not only establishes clear accountability for the marketing department, but builds deeper trust in marketing throughout the organization.

While McKinsey’s study is looking at larger trends, some CMOs have been successfully inserting themselves into corporate strategy and reaping the rewards. I talked to Beth LaGuardia Cooper, CMO of Advantage Media, about how CMOs can help steer a company’s direction. An excerpt from our conversation is later in this newsletter.

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Musk responded in a series of posts, saying that the chatbot was “too compliant to user prompts” and “too eager to be manipulated,” adding that the issue was “being addressed.” But just a day later, X CEO Linda Yaccarino announced she was stepping down from her leadership post at the platform. Yaccarino, a former advertising leader at NBCUniversal, did not give a reason for her departure in her announcement, and no interim leader for the platform appears to have been named. 

Yaccarino had pushed to expand advertising on X, but it was a perpetually difficult job. In late 2023, many advertisers left the platform, citing a new prevalence of antisemitic and hateful content on users’ feeds, as well as Musk’s personal endorsement of an antisemitic post. Because X is part of a private company, advertising and user revenues are not publicly reported, though Yaccarino said at the beginning of 2025 that 96% of its top advertisers had come back.

While Grok’s MechaHitler AI persona went away, antisemitic posts on X didn’t stop. Over the weekend, a hacker breached the X account of beloved Sesame Street muppet Elmo, posting antisemitic slurs and calling for violence against Jews. Sesame Workshop has since said the account was back under its control, and the objectionable messages had been deleted.

In the midst of the MechaHitler controversy, Musk announced that he’d upgraded Grok to a new version he claimed was “smarter than almost all graduate students.” He admitted that the chatbot might lack “common sense,” but said it’s also coming to Tesla vehicles in the near future. A Tesla info page says the chatbot will not be used for navigation or vehicle controls, appearing to be more about providing conversation and information. Users can “choose Grok's voice and personality, ranging from Storyteller to Unhinged, to enhance convenience while you’re on the go,” Tesla says.

Streaming will likely continue to dominate as networks find new ways to build engagement. The most recent season of Love Island also launched an interactive mobile app featuring quizzes and games, which NBCUniversal claims has been responsible for the show’s skyrocketing viewership. Meanwhile, Netflix’s original movie KPop Demon Hunters features an animated K-pop girl group that slays evil fans—and its soundtrack has been a real-world hit, with multiple songs reaching top positions on the U.S. Spotify charts, writes Forbes contributor Lily Ogburn. Forbes senior contributor Paul Tassi calls the double whammy of high viewership numbers and hit songs impressive. And popular properties, especially for children’s shows, have continued to perform well. According to Nielsen, Australian cartoon Bluey, which chronicles a fun family of dogs and is streamed on Disney+, was the most viewed streaming show in the first half of 2025, with more than 25 billion minutes watched so far this year.

While broadening accessibility may have paid off in the past, it’s heralding financial difficulty going forward. Aspirational customers are more likely to pull back on luxury spending as the economy becomes more uncertain—35% have definitively directed luxury spending elsewhere—and brands with at least half of their customers in this classification are seeing the steepest declines. 

The report recommends that luxury brands refocus on their top tier consumers, who will still have the ability to buy regardless of what happens next in the economy, recalibrating their level of intimacy and connection with these consumers. That also includes enhancing the online experience. Forbes Research found that 51% of high-end consumers prefer a hybrid approach to luxury shopping: browsing online, but completing the purchase in person.

Every business is an AI company nowadays. Here are some strategies collected from Forbes contributors about how you can make sure the technology is being implemented to its fullest potential at your company.