How to rebuild your martech stack for the agentic era

AI hasn’t just changed how marketers work — it’s changed how stacks are built.

Once an architectural buzzword, composability has become a business discipline. The rise of AI is forcing organizations to rethink how their martech stacks connect, adapt, and deliver value. What used to be a static set of tools is now a living, learning ecosystem — one that demands both structure and flexibility, but also simplicity.

In our latest whitepaper with MartechTribe, Composable by Design: Building an Agentic Content Ecosystem, we unpack how leading marketers are turning composability from theory into strategy, and how agentic AI is redefining what ‘connected’ really means.

The martech landscape has never been bigger — or more fragmented.

There are now more than 15,000 tools in the ecosystem (up from just 150 in 2011). And while that might sound empowering, it’s created a new kind of complexity: too many tools, not enough design.

Our research found that:

• 62% of companies are using more martech tools than two years ago (Martech.org, 2025 State of Your Stack Survey)
• Only 33% of martech capabilities are fully utilized (Gartner, 2023 Martech Utilization Survey)
• 39% of CMOs face pressure to cut martech costs, while still proving ROI (Gartner CMO Spend Survey 2025)

The answer isn’t to consolidate everything into one suite. It’s to compose with intent — structuring your stack around outcomes, not tool count. More martech is just not the answer anymore.

Every martech stack has a gravitational center. Around it, orbit the tools that extend, enrich, and experiment.

The highest-performing organizations structure their stacks like a solar system, with a stable, governed core surrounded by flexible, composable tools.

Here's an example of a content ecosystem:

• CMS / DXP – delivers structured, scalable experiences
• CMP – orchestrates planning and workflows
• DAM – manages approved assets
• Analytics & BI – closes the loop with performance insight
• Personalization platform – adapts journeys in real time
• Agentic AI – connects intelligence across every layer

Around that core, specialist tools orbit to add innovation and speed — from SEO and accessibility to social publishing and experimentation. The result? A modular ecosystem that scales without collapsing under its own complexity.

One unified platform? Yes please. Here's why a fragmented martech stack is killing your AI vibe.

For ultimate engagement, you need data, content, and personalization. These three elements together define the composable stack.

• The data layer: Already highly integrated (and cherished) in most stacks, and it's becoming increasingly seamless.
• The content layer: Still often considered the bottleneck in this trio, content creation is still fragmented and manual, making scalability more difficult than the other layers.
• The personalization layer: This is where the two worlds of data and content meet, and where prospects convert into customers. For it to be further enhanced, the content process must be too.

In short, while data systems are automated, API-driven, and deeply integrated, content remains fragmented across teams and tools. The result is inefficiency and waste:

• 65% of content assets go unused (State of B2B Content Marketing 2024)
• 77% of teams already struggle to meet content demand (Fast Company, 2025)
• Demand for content is projected to triple in the next two years (Fast Company, 2025)

To keep pace, organizations must treat content with the same architectural discipline as data — designing a connected content lifecycle that spans:

Produce → Deliver → Personalize → Analyze → Learn

When content moves through this loop, every piece becomes smarter, faster, and more impactful with each cycle.

AI isn’t just another tool in the stack — it’s the connective tissue that turns it into an ecosystem.

Where traditional AI tools live in silos, agentic AI works across them, orchestrating workflows and adapting in real time. It’s the difference between automating a task and optimizing the entire system.

When agentic AI is embedded across the content lifecycle, it:

• Speeds up content creation and approval cycles
• Bridges data and creative teams with shared context
• Adapts content in real time based on performance signals

In other words: AI stops being a sidekick and becomes the system’s operating logic.

Get more facts and stats in our recent Optimizely Opal AI Benchmark Report 2025.

More tools don’t mean more capability — not without discipline.

The strongest organizations simplify their stacks through governance, not guesswork. They define clear ownership, standardize taxonomies, and continuously review utilization and ROI.

Good governance doesn’t slow teams down — it gives them the freedom to move faster with confidence, knowing the ecosystem beneath them is sound.

A clear and structured evaluation process is what is needed to highlight intentional, risk-aware choices, and ultimately create a balanced framework that points to innovation, governance, and long-term scalability.

Get your complete Content Ecosystem Checklist (and example content ecosystem for inspiration) by downloading the full whitepaper.

Composable isn’t chaos. It’s choreography.

When done right, composability turns disconnected tools into a cohesive, AI-powered ecosystem — one that continuously adapts to customers, accelerates workflows, and proves value across every channel.

Read the full whitepaper — Composable by Design: Building an Agentic Content Ecosystem — to see how leading brands are architecting for agility, intelligence, and long-term growth.