Who Owns AI? It’s a Group Project, According to Our Research

This summer, Acquia surveyed 250 CMOs and senior marketing directors, 250 CIOs and CTOs, and 575 web developers about AI, platforms, and who’s in charge of both. That’s 1,075 people who spent part of their vacation season answering our questions about AI! 

We published the results in The Missing Success Factor for Growth in the Agentic Era, and I wrote up the developer findings in What Developers Want From a CMS.

Since then, we have published pieces on who owns AI, how AI is changing the way customers find you, Drupal’s reputation, and what AI agents need from your content. Let's dive in. 

Who owns AI decisions, marketing or IT?

Neither Marketing nor IT exclusively owns AI decisions. When we asked CMOs who should lead their next platform decision, 25% named themselves, 24% named the CIO or CTO, and 18% named the head of digital. That sounds more like a group project.

And like most group projects, everyone ends up involved anyway. Even when IT isn’t leading, 30% of CMOs call it a key evaluator, and 40% say it’s consulted.

Jennifer Griffin Smith, Acquia’s CMO, took on what to do about the split in You Can’t Co-Own What You Don’t Co-Measure. Anyone who’s ever been part of a group project knows it goes better when everyone agrees on what “done” looks like before you get started. She argues that when marketing and IT share the AI agenda, the first step is agreeing on how to measure it.

How is AI changing the way customers find you?

How customers find you is no longer just an SEO task. 57% of CMOs say showing up in AI-generated answers is a board priority for the brand.

Developers see the same shift from the other side. When they research a new CMS, 49% turn to an AI assistant like ChatGPT or Claude for recommendations. So your platform’s reputation now depends partly on what a chatbot says about it. No pressure.

Maggie Schroeder, Acquia’s VP of Platform and Solutions Marketing, dug into what this means in How Your Consumers’ Habits Are Changing and What It Means for Your Organization. She explained why your next customer may never land on your homepage, and how organizations in the public sector, manufacturing, and financial services can structure content for an audience of both people and AI agents.

What do developers want from a CMS?

Developers choose a platform based on security, and they leave when it isn’t a good fit for AI. 56% rank security among their top three selection criteria, more than any other factor. But 53% say they’d leave a platform that doesn’t fit their AI or agentic workflows, the top reason to switch other than cost.

They also have more say than you might think: 80% are involved in choosing the CMS their organization uses. So if you’ve been leaving them out of the room, they’ve noticed. In my write-up of the developer findings, I broke down what triggers a CMS evaluation, what makes developers leave, and where they go for advice.

Does Drupal deserve its reputation?

If you’ve heard Drupal is outdated, complex, or hard to learn, you aren’t alone. Some of that reputation was earned, but a lot of it is a few versions out of date, like a LinkedIn headshot from 2014. 

When we asked developers what they need as AI evolves, 57% of those working outside Drupal said a platform they won’t have to fully rebuild. Only 47% of Drupal developers said the same. In other words, Drupal developers are less worried about starting over. Not bad for an “outdated” platform. Drupal developers, you may now look smug.

Martin Anderson-Clutz, our resident Drupal guru (officially Acquia’s Senior Product Marketing Manager for Drupal), took on the objections we hear most in Reasons Not to Use Drupal: Debunking 5 Common Myths. He backed up each answer with proof from organizations like the NSW Government and King Arthur Baking. If someone in your last meeting asked, “Isn’t Drupal just for developers?”, send them this one. 

What does AI need from your content platform?

AI needs a solid content foundation first. That’s something we can all agree on.

• CMOs: 56% say their content is built for people to read, not structured for AI.
• CIOs and CTOs: 56% won’t roll out AI features until their content structure and data integrity are solid.
• Developers: 51% want content that AI agents can reliably find, query, and act on.

In Why Drupal Is the Best CMS for AI, Martin made the technical case for what that foundation looks like: a provider-agnostic AI layer, structured content agents can use, MCP support, and governance built in. Developers get the tools they want. Your compliance team gets to sleep at night. Everyone wins, which seldom happens in enterprise software.

What it all adds up to

Choosing a platform is not a decision owned by one department. The CMO cares whether content ships fast and shows up in AI search. The CIO cares whether it’s secure and governed. Developers care whether they’ll have to rebuild it in three years.

The organizations that move fastest with AI will stop arguing over who owns it and build a foundation that works for both sides.

In the weeks ahead, we’ll dig into how AI search is rewriting the marketing funnel, how to keep your brand consistent as you ship more content, and what’s next for the agentic web. In the meantime, see what a shared foundation looks like with Acquia Source.