What it is
Gartner, the research and advisory firm. The topic page is public; the full survey report is for paying clients.
The 2025 survey covered 413 marketing technology leaders between June and August 2025. Its headline number is utilization, the share of purchased capability actually in use, which Gartner puts at 49%. Earlier editions reported 58% in 2020, 42% in 2022 and 33% in 2023, so 49% is a partial recovery rather than a new low, though the definition may have shifted across years.
On AI agents, 45% of martech leaders with agents in pilot or production said the vendor-offered capabilities did not meet expectations of business performance, while 89% still expected significant benefit from their agent initiatives. Gartner names talent, technical readiness, data governance and security as the constraints.
What marketing teams should take from it
- Utilization is a single number a CMO can track year over year, and 49% is the benchmark. It says the tool list deserves a look; it does not say which license to cancel, which is the point of chapter 2.
- The vendor-agent finding, 45% underdelivering, is the figure to have in hand when a platform vendor pitches bundled agents.
- Gartner defines high performers as teams that both meet strategic goals and show positive return, and finds only about 15% qualify.
- The report itself is paywalled; the public figures come from Gartner’s topic page and press release.
Where to start
Ask marketing ops to estimate, using Gartner’s definition, what share of the capability you have bought is in use, and set it beside 49%. Then follow one campaign through the tools, as finding 02.1 describes, before deciding what to cut.
When a vendor pitches an AI agent, ask which business-performance baseline it will be judged against and when. The 45% figure is your reason for asking.
Keep in mind
Utilization is self-estimated by martech leaders, and Gartner’s sample skews to large enterprises. The 2025 figures are quoted from Gartner’s public summaries, not the full report.