Berlin showed one thing clearly: AI is no longer a future topic for marketers – it is already reshaping strategy, operations, and customer engagement.
On 5 March 2026, marketing and technology leaders gathered at the JW Marriott Hotel Berlin for the The MarTech Summit Berlin 2026, a full day of insights, discussions, and practical case studies exploring how artificial intelligence and marketing technology are reshaping the industry.
We welcomed over 350 senior marketing professionals alongside more than 40 insightful speakers and 18 leading MarTech exhibitors, and we facilitated over 90 1:1 meetings. We had attendees joining from Momox, Too Good To Go,DKB AG, Lufthansa Innovation Hub,Zalando SE, METRO, Bosch Power Tools, Schaeffler Group and many more. The summit brought together practitioners and innovators to discuss the most pressing themes in modern marketing: AI in marketing decisioning, MarTech ecosystems, AI-driven automation, customer engagement and personalisation, marketing operations, creative strategy in a technology-driven world, and the growing challenge of brand visibility in an AI and zero-click era.
Who Attended?
Attendee Demographics:
Summit Highlights
AI Is Reshaping Marketing, But Strategy Still Leads
One of the strongest messages across the event was that AI is accelerating marketing capabilities, but it cannot replace strategic clarity.
During the panel on AI-Powered Campaign Strategy, Asu Erayda Akyüz, Head of Performance Marketing & Marketing Automation at SunExpress Airlines, emphasised the importance of starting with fundamentals:
“Start with business objectives and audience clarity, not with tools. AI only works when direction is clear. ROI discipline and human guardrails are non-negotiable. AI optimizes patterns, humans protect strategy and brand. Automation creates impact… but only when creative, data and dynamic feeds work together. That’s when AI doesn’t just optimize… it multiplies.”
Her insights highlighted a recurring theme across the summit: AI amplifies what already works, it doesn’t fix weak strategy.
Throughout the summit the audience engaged in polls, and you can see the results here of when they were asked about current solutions.
Breaking Silos to Unlock Revenue Growth
Another central topic was the challenge of organisational alignment. Despite advanced tools and technologies, many companies still struggle with fragmented marketing, sales, and customer experience teams.
Speaking during the discussion on cross-functional collaboration, Sébastien Henrotay, Head of Omnichannel Experience Acceleration (DACH) at Danone, shared a practical framework for progress:
“To effectively break silos, start thinking in cross-functional journeys and MVUs (Minimum Viable Use Cases). Be aware of your stakeholders’ map and invest in their emotional bank accounts. Act as behavioural scientists, working in constant ‘test & learn’ cycles of hypotheses.”
The advice resonated strongly with attendees: technology transformation must go hand in hand with organisational and behavioural change.
Automation Is Expanding What’s Possible
Automation and AI-driven optimisation were another major focus, particularly in the context of operational efficiency and scalable marketing.
Fulvio Minichini, Principal Technical Product Manager at HeyJobs, stressed the importance of clarity and experimentation:
“Know what you want to automate and why. If there is a clear use case in your business that could benefit from automation. Do not assume what you knew until now still stands, experiment. From technical acceleration, to creative automation and machine learning powered bidding, the definition of what’s possible has changed.”
His perspective reflected the broader shift in marketing operations: automation is no longer limited to workflows, it now touches media buying, creative generation, and predictive optimisation.
Content in the Age of AI
While AI dominated the conversation, creativity and content remained at the core of successful marketing.
Alessandra Tieghi-Krakowiak, Associate Director, Head of Marketing & Clinical, Connected Care Europe at Baxter International, summarised one of the day’s key insights during the omnichannel marketing session:
“Content is king as we always say in marketing, but with AI, content becomes imperial.”
With generative AI enabling scalable personalisation across channels, content quality, relevance, and structure are becoming even more critical to customer engagement.
Another poll for the audience when questioned on their channel patterns and usage
Preparing for an AI-Driven Marketing Landscape
Another emerging discussion focused on how brands can remain visible and relevant in a rapidly evolving digital environment, particularly as AI search and zero-click experiences reshape discovery and customer journeys.
During a session on regional marketing strategy, Christian Kirchbaumer, Head of Global Marketing at Stabilus, shared two practical recommendations for companies preparing for the future:
“Take care of GEO visibility and connect your databases to your company LLM.”
This reflects a growing shift toward AI-ready data infrastructures and new approaches to brand discoverability.
A Defining Moment for MarTech
Across keynote presentations, panels, and discussions, one message stood out clearly: marketing is entering a new phase where AI, data, and human creativity must work together.
The future of MarTech will not be defined solely by technology stacks, but by how organisations:
- Align teams across the customer journey
- Use AI responsibly and strategically
- Build scalable yet creative marketing systems
- Adapt to new discovery and engagement models
As the conversations at The MarTech Summit Berlin 2026 showed, the industry is still learning, but the direction is clear.
The next generation of marketing will be AI-augmented, data-connected, and deeply human-centred.
👉 Catch more recap here: https://www.instagram.com/stories/highlights/17997194033879991/
Looking Ahead
The energy and insights from The MarTech Summit Berlin 2026 set the stage for future innovation. With the rapid evolution of AI, data analytics, and automation, the summit underscored the importance of AI-augmented, data-connected, and deeply human-centred.
We are excited to announce a series of upcoming events for 2026, designed to continue fostering innovation and excellence in MarTech:
In the APAC region
In the EMEA region
To see our full calendar, please visit: https://themartechsummit.com/events/
Future engagement
Lastly, don’t forget to stay up-to-date with all things The MarTech Summit by following our social media accounts to not miss an update!
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We hope to see you at our future events and let’s continue pushing the boundaries of what it means to be marketers together!
Stay tuned for updates!
By: Catherine Collinge | March 2026
