Five marketing challenges taking center stage at The MarTech Summit London

The MarTech Summit London returns on November 10 and 11, 2026, with a program that reflects a shift in the questions marketing leaders are asking. The challenge is no longer simply which technologies to adopt. It is how to make those technologies accountable, connected and commercially useful.

Taking place at Convene 155 Bishopsgate, the event brings together marketing, customer experience, digital and technology executives from organizations including Reckitt, HSBC, Barclays, the Financial Times and NatWest Group. The agenda identifies five areas where the gap between technological ambition and operational execution deserves closer examination.

Table of contents

Jump to each section:

• AI adoption creates new governance questions
• AI search changes what visibility means
• Martech consolidation becomes an operational decision
• Marketing effectiveness faces closer financial scrutiny
• Digital accessibility enters the growth conversation

AI adoption creates new governance questions

For marketing teams already experimenting with generative AI, the next challenge is establishing responsibility for how these systems operate. AI can support content development, customer analysis and campaign workflows. Yet introducing another tool does not automatically establish who approves its outputs, manages its access to customer information or evaluates its performance.

At The MarTech Summit London, Ishaan Kaul, Director of AI Adoption & Creativity at Reckitt, is among the speakers addressing the practical implications of bringing AI into marketing organizations. Diego Lomanto, CMO at WRITER, and Amit Deol, Senior ML Prototyping Architect at AWS, bring additional perspectives on AI deployment. Hightouch is also hosting a roundtable examining whether marketing organizations are genuinely prepared for AI.

The deeper question is whether businesses are building repeatable operating models or accumulating isolated AI experiments. AI adoption creates capability. Governance determines whether that capability can be trusted at scale.

AI search changes what visibility means

Search visibility has traditionally been evaluated through rankings, clicks and website traffic. AI-powered answer engines complicate that measurement model. When an assistant synthesizes information directly for users, a brand may influence the answer without receiving a conventional website visit. Conversely, an organization may perform well in traditional search while receiving limited visibility in generated responses.

Saga Torseke, AEO Specialist and Enterprise Advisor at Profound, is among the speakers addressing answer engine optimization at the summit. George Williams, Global Head of Public Web Services & Content at HSBC, brings an enterprise perspective to digital content management.

How should AI-generated mentions be monitored? What makes brand information easier for answer engines to interpret? How should teams evaluate performance when the customer journey no longer follows a predictable sequence of search, click and conversion? AI visibility and website traffic are related, but not interchangeable measures.

Martech consolidation becomes an operational decision

Marketing technology consolidation sounds straightforward until organizations begin examining the dependencies between platforms. Removing overlapping tools can reduce complexity and potentially lower costs. However, replacing an existing system may also affect customer data flows, campaign automation, reporting and integrations.

At the summit, Sesi Sijuade, Director of Marketing Technologies at Barclays, and Laxmi Patel, Head of CRM Product & Planning at Virgin Media O2, are among the enterprise practitioners bringing experience from complex marketing environments. Other speakers include Khadija Ahmad of ITV, Jalpa Bhatt of Janus Henderson Investors and Sagar Mandal of Ameriprise Financial Services.

Marketing leaders should identify which platforms provide distinct business value, which capabilities overlap and which integrations are critical to daily operations. The best martech stack is not necessarily the one with the most capabilities. It is the one an organization can operate effectively.

Marketing effectiveness faces closer financial scrutiny

Marketing measurement becomes more difficult when customer journeys span multiple platforms, privacy restrictions limit available data and attribution models provide incomplete explanations of performance. Yet marketing leaders still need to demonstrate how their investments contribute to business outcomes.

The summit brings this challenge into focus through speakers including Natasha Woolfe, Head of Marketing Effectiveness at Knight Frank, and Katrina Broster, Group Director of Marketing Performance & Technology at the Financial Times. Alex Phennah of Moody's and Ashley Flight of JPMorgan Chase are also part of the speaker lineup.

Measurement challenges cannot always be solved by purchasing another analytics platform. Marketing teams must establish which outcomes matter, how different channels contribute to those outcomes and where limitations of available evidence should be acknowledged.

Digital accessibility enters the growth conversation

Digital accessibility is often treated primarily as a compliance requirement. Its implications for customer experience deserve equal attention. When customers encounter inaccessible forms, confusing navigation or interfaces that are difficult to use, those barriers can interrupt journeys that marketing teams have already invested in attracting.

Rebecca Brindley, Head of Digital Accessibility at NatWest Group, is among the speakers bringing this issue into the summit's discussions. Improving accessibility can remove friction from digital experiences, although the precise impact on conversion depends on the audience, implementation and existing barriers.

The event also features discussions involving Chris Pozzi of Twilio and messaging developments such as rich communication services. Customer experience improvements are not limited to adding features. Sometimes the greater opportunity is removing barriers.

The MarTech Summit London's agenda suggests that marketing technology discussions are increasingly concerned with implementation, ownership and measurable outcomes.

The event will feature plenary programming on November 10, followed by separate B2C and B2B marketing stages on November 11. As marketing technology becomes more deeply embedded in business operations, the distinction between marketing strategy and technology management becomes harder to maintain.