agentic AI, marketers also must grapple with a fundamental question: Will the future of marketing be defined by the ability to orchestrate complex networks of AI agents, or will human intuition and creativity continue to sit at the helm of the systems that drive success? The answer lies not in replacing human marketers but in augmenting their capabilities to create unprecedented levels of personalization, efficiency, and innovation. Human-led insights—grounded in cultural understanding, qualitative sense-making, and strategic judgment—will remain essential complements to the precision and scalability that agentic AI enables. The real challenge will be in navigating the uncharted territory where human judgment and creativity intersect with AI-driven precision and execution, and in doing so, redefining the very fabric of marketing itself. Dianne Esber is a senior partner in McKinsey’s Bay Area office, where Eli Stein is a partner; Julien Boudet is a senior partner in the Southern California office; Kelsey Robinson is a senior partner in the Boston office; and Nilay Shah is a consultant in the New York office. The authors wish to thank Isaac Berken for his contributions to this article. This article was edited by Larry Kanter, a senior editor in the New York office. Copyright © 2026 McKinsey & Company. All rights reserved. Reinventing marketing workflows with agentic AI 10