{"id":94872,"date":"2026-09-02T13:22:38","date_gmt":"2026-09-02T13:22:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.bloomreach.com\/?post_type=library&p=94872"},"modified":"2026-09-02T13:22:41","modified_gmt":"2026-09-02T13:22:41","slug":"martech-platform-and-agentic-ai-modern-marketing-demands-both","status":"publish","type":"library","link":"https:\/\/www.bloomreach.com\/en\/blog\/martech-platform-and-agentic-ai-modern-marketing-demands-both","title":{"rendered":"Choosing Between a Martech Platform and Agentic AI? Modern Marketing Demands Both"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Agentic AI is transforming martech, and as retailers try to understand the evolution taking place, a troubling pattern has emerged: many brands are choosing to do nothing about it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This choice comes from caution rather than indifference. Retailers recognize how quickly the rules of martech are changing. So, they explore their options \u2014 they do a deep dive and evaluate email and marketing platforms, investing months of their team’s time in the process. And then, increasingly, they walk away without making a decision at all.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Across industries and companies, the reason is remarkably consistent: With AI changing so quickly, it\u2019s hard to know whether to invest in a modern marketing platform or hold out for an agentic solution.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It’s easy to see why this feels like a binary choice. Platforms offer stability, while AI-native solutions sell a future where autonomous agents handle the work for you. When those are the only two pitches you hear, it’s natural to assume they’re competing categories \u2014 and that investing in one means missing out on the other.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But avoiding a black-and -white choice isn\u2019t the same as avoiding risk. Instead, it\u2019s ultimately holding your business back. The real question isn\u2019t, \u201cShould I choose a platform or an agentic solution?\u201d but rather, \u201cWhere do the two meet to give me a future-proof foundation for growth?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The Measurable Cost of Indecision<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Staying the course with a martech stack that isn’t built for modern commerce carries real costs that show up in your team’s productivity, your platform’s utilization, and your bottom line.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Your Team Is Paying the Price<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

The most immediate cost of inaction is felt by the people working with an underperforming platform. When businesses opt to keep legacy solutions, problems like slow manual workflows, data silos, and ongoing platform maintenance don\u2019t go away \u2014 they simply pile up as martech continues to get faster, smarter, and more demanding.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Forrester’s research<\/a> found that marketers using modern platforms send 2x the number of campaigns without adding headcount. Legacy solutions effectively require double the effort for the same output, with exponential time and energy needed to keep up with today\u2019s marketing expectations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The bottom-line cost is just as stark. Legacy platforms require increasing maintenance over time, often needing custom workarounds and dedicated resources just to keep them functional. Forrester found that Bloomreach customers realized $2.3 million in cost savings over three years simply from retiring legacy technology. The longer you delay migration, the more savings you\u2019re missing out on.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Utilization Crisis<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Beyond outdated processes, many marketing teams aren’t even using the full capabilities of the platforms they’re paying for, which makes the case for keeping them even harder to justify.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

According to Gartner<\/a>, martech utilization has dropped to just 49% of stack capabilities being actively used. That means the average marketing team is paying for an entire platform and only getting value from half of it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

No matter what size your business is, a utilization gap is a problem. Martech accounts for nearly 22% of total marketing spend, and when more than half of that investment sits idle, it doesn’t just represent waste. It actively crowds out the budget that teams need to succeed. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

59% of CMOs report<\/a> they don’t have enough budget to execute their strategy \u2014 and every quarter you stay on a platform you’ve outgrown is a quarter of unrealized revenue, efficiency, and competitive advantage.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Growth To Be Gained by Taking Action<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

When businesses move beyond legacy platforms and adopt a modern solution \u2014 one with unified data, omnichannel orchestration, AI-driven personalization \u2014 the ROI is transformational.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Forrester Total Economic Impact study<\/a> of Bloomreach\u2019s agentic personalization platform, Loomi<\/a>, found that customers achieved a 251% ROI with payback in under six months.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That\u2019s the measured result from real customers, and they prove that delaying a migration directly translates to missed opportunities for growth.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Why Platform vs. Agent Is a False Choice<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

The data shows that agentic AI is here to stay \u2014 and that the smartest organizations aren’t treating it as an alternative to a marketing platform. Instead, they’re embracing both.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Agentic AI Is the Priority, While Platforms Are the Foundation<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s obvious that agentic AI isn’t a passing trend, and the momentum behind its adoption is accelerating.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Gartner predicts<\/a> that by 2028, 60% of brands will use agentic AI to facilitate streamlined one-to-one interactions. And, according to a 2026 survey from the Futurum Group<\/a>, autonomous agents grew 31% year-over-year as a technology priority \u2014 the fastest-growing category in the survey \u2014 while 51% of organizations rank sales and marketing as a top-two priority for agentic AI deployment. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The numbers show that brands are willing to embrace agentic AI, but that\u2019s not the whole story. Those same brands are also adopting unified platforms.<\/em> 66% of organizations now favor a platform-first strategy over best-of-breed point solutions. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

They\u2019re not choosing between platforms and agents \u2014 they’re looking for platforms that deliver agentic capabilities.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A Unified Platform Is Crucial for Modern Martech <\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Agentic solutions aren\u2019t replacing a fully functional, omnichannel marketing platform. They enhance it, and they depend on it to function.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

An AI agent can optimize send times, generate content, and personalize recommendations \u2014 but it needs a unified customer data layer to know who it’s talking to, channel orchestration to reach them across every touchpoint, and automation workflows to sustain the conversation over days, weeks, or months. It also needs analytics and attribution feeding signals back in to learn what’s working.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Without the infrastructure of a platform, an AI agent is like a brain without a body. It\u2019s intelligent, but unable to act \u2014 which is why the platform-first approach is the right move for modern businesses:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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  1. It\u2019s the foundation agents need to deliver.<\/strong> The reliability, compliance, and data infrastructure of a platform aren’t just operational requirements \u2014 they empower agentic AI to be effective. An agent built on fragmented tools and disconnected data will underperform against one powered by a unified platform.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n\n\n\n
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    1. It amplifies revenue per channel.<\/strong> When channels share the same customer data and orchestration layer, each one boosts the others. SMS isn’t just another send \u2014 it’s a touchpoint informed by what the customer browsed, what email they opened, and what’s sitting in their cart. Forrester’s TEI study found $2.8 million in SMS revenue growth when SMS was integrated alongside email on the same platform, and omnichannel cart recovery drives up to a 45% recovery rate uplift vs. single-channel approaches.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n\n\n\n
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      1. It empowers brands to keep pace as AI evolves.<\/strong> A platform ensures campaigns run, revenue flows, and customers stay engaged today \u2014 all while agentic capabilities are developed and layered on top. You don’t have to choose between investing in what works now and building toward what’s next.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n\n\n\n

        With the Right Platform, You Can Put Agents to Work Today<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

        Adopting a modern platform doesn’t mean waiting for agents \u2014 it means you’re ready to put them in practice on day one. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

        Bloomreach\u2019s agentic personalization platform, Loomi<\/a>, is purpose-built to do exactly that. It provides the intelligent architecture brands need to understand every customer, engage dynamically across every channel, and operate at the speed and scale that modern marketing demands. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

        It does so by combining:<\/p>\n\n\n\n