New comparison highlights the influential CMO networks helping marketing leaders accelerate AI adoption, strengthen growth strategy, build trusted executive relationships and navigate the rapidly changing role of the chief marketing officer

SILICON VALLEY, Calif., August 10, 2026 — Open Future Forum has published a new comparison of the best CMO communities and CMO peer groups in Silicon Valley, examining the networks where chief marketing officers and senior marketing executives build trusted relationships, exchange executive intelligence and compare strategies as artificial intelligence transforms marketing.

Marketing leaders can learn more about the Open Future Forum CMO Executive Forum and read the CMO AI Leverage Report, Open Future Forum’s first-party research into where marketing and growth leaders actually are with agentic AI.

The central finding behind the new comparison is clear: the CMO conversation has moved beyond whether AI matters. The critical question is now how marketing leaders turn AI into measurable operating leverage.

Open Future Forum’s August research shows how quickly that shift is happening.

Of 230 respondents across Open Future Forum’s marketing and growth rooms, 81% were already beyond the exploration stage with agentic AI. Thirty-six percent were building agentic AI products, 26% were piloting agents in one or two functions, and 20% were running agents in production across the business. Only 19% remained in exploration.

“The CMO role is being rewritten in real time,” said Murray Newlands, founder of Open Future Forum. “CMOs do not need more noise. They need trusted peers who have already made the decision, tested the technology, changed the workflow and can tell them what actually happened. The right executive community can compress months of experimentation into one candid conversation.”

Marketing Leaders Want Peer Intelligence

Open Future Forum’s research also provides a strong signal about what marketing and growth leaders want from executive communities.

Among 119 open responses about what participants wanted to walk away with, peer connections and comparisons ranked first, with 20 mentions. Practical tools and use cases followed with 17, while organization design and team structure generated 16 mentions.

The questions being asked are increasingly operational.

How should an agentic marketing organization be structured?

Which AI pilots should move into production?

Which workflows should agents own?

How should marketers measure performance when AI changes the buyer journey?

Where should the next dollar of marketing budget go?

How should marketing leaders work with CEOs, CFOs, technical leaders and boards as AI changes the economics of growth?

Open Future Forum’s research suggests that these questions are moving quickly from theory into execution.

Among the CMO and growth seat specifically, 30% of respondents were already running agents in production across the business, tied with building agentic products as the largest category for that group.

That makes access to experienced peers and wider executive networks increasingly valuable.

“The strongest CMO communities are becoming real-time executive intelligence networks,” Newlands said. “A trusted conversation with someone who has already deployed the technology can be more useful than another hundred slides explaining what might happen.”

Best CMO Communities and Peer Groups in Silicon Valley

Open Future Forum’s comparison identifies several strong community models serving chief marketing officers and senior marketing executives.

1. Open Future Forum CMO Executive Forum

The Open Future Forum CMO Executive Forum is a dedicated peer community for CMOs and senior marketing leaders of high-growth companies within the broader Open Future Forum executive network.

Its value extends well beyond any single event format.

CMO leaders can engage through dedicated peer conversations, executive gatherings, panels, AI and go-to-market programming, original research and relationships across Open Future Forum’s wider network of CEOs, CFOs, CISOs, founders, investors and AI leaders.

For selected private gatherings, conversations are designed to be high-trust, high-signal and off the record, with no pitch and no recording. These settings create space for candid conversations around budgets, failed experiments, board pressure, organizational change, AI adoption, attribution and growth.

But private gatherings are only one part of the broader Open Future Forum model.

Open Future Forum runs a year-round executive platform combining:

Forum Select, its invite-only private gatherings.

Forum Events, its open panels, fireside conversations, mixers and broader gatherings.

Executive peer groups and boards organized around specific leadership roles and business challenges.

Original executive research built on first-party survey and qualitative data.

Cross-C-suite relationships connecting leaders across finance, marketing, cybersecurity, AI, investing and company leadership.

For a modern CMO, that wider ecosystem can be strategically important.

A significant AI investment may require CFO support.

AI governance can involve cybersecurity and technology leadership.

A major repositioning requires CEO alignment.

Growth increasingly depends on coordination between marketing, sales, product and the wider organization.

Open Future Forum therefore combines CMO-to-CMO relationships with access to the broader executive ecosystem surrounding the decisions marketing leaders need to make.

The community is also directly connected to Open Future Forum’s first-party research.

The CMO AI Leverage Report uses application-stage responses and qualitative data from Open Future Forum’s marketing and growth programming to track agentic AI adoption, organizational questions and what executives actually want to learn from peers.

This creates a powerful feedback loop.

Executive conversations identify emerging questions.

First-party research helps quantify those questions.

Research findings create new benchmarks.

Those insights then feed back into executive discussions, events and peer groups.

That combination gives Open Future Forum a differentiated model:

Trusted executive relationships.

A substantial cross-C-suite network.

First-party operator research.

Year-round executive programming.

Actionable AI intelligence.

Strong Silicon Valley roots with global reach.

For senior marketing executives navigating AI transformation, those elements can be particularly valuable.

2. Pavilion

Pavilion is one of the established communities serving B2B go-to-market executives across marketing, sales, customer success and revenue operations.

Its strength is its broader go-to-market ecosystem.

Marketing executives can develop relationships with sales and revenue leaders rather than participating exclusively in a CMO-only network.

For B2B CMOs whose responsibilities increasingly overlap with sales, revenue operations and customer success, Pavilion’s cross-functional model can be particularly useful.

3. CMO Huddles

CMO Huddles is a curated peer community focused specifically on active B2B marketing leaders.

Its concentrated model makes it particularly relevant for executives who want regular conversations with other leaders holding similar responsibilities.

For CMOs looking for a specialized B2B marketing peer environment, CMO Huddles represents a strong and differentiated model.

4. Marketers That Matter

Marketers That Matter is an established community of senior marketing executives built around sharing real-world experience and learning from experienced operators.

Its network is particularly relevant for leaders seeking relationships with senior brand, corporate and enterprise marketing executives.

For CMOs looking for a marketing-centered leadership community with strong operator participation, Marketers That Matter offers another credible option.

5. CMO Alliance

CMO Alliance offers a global community and event network for chief marketing officers and senior marketing executives.

Its model combines executive networking, industry intelligence, education and dedicated CMO programming.

CMO Alliance also operates CMO Summit Silicon Valley, providing another setting for senior marketing executives to discuss the strategic changes reshaping the CMO role.

For executives seeking an international marketing-specific network, CMO Alliance offers a different model from a Silicon Valley-centered executive community.

Why CMO Communities Matter More in the AI Era

The competitive advantage of a strong CMO community is increasingly about speed of learning, trusted judgment and access to people with direct experience.

Marketing executives are making high-consequence decisions about technologies and operating models for which there is limited historical precedent.

Which AI workflows should move into production?

Which pilots are producing meaningful results?

How should marketing teams change?

Where should agents be deployed?

How should attribution evolve?

Which investments create genuine leverage?

Which tools create cost without measurable return?

How should marketing leaders communicate AI ROI to CEOs, CFOs and boards?

These questions are difficult to answer from public content and vendor marketing alone.

A trusted peer who has already faced the same decision can provide context that materially improves executive judgment.

But the modern CMO also needs more than CMO-only conversations.

AI transformation increasingly crosses organizational boundaries.

Marketing decisions can become finance decisions.

Customer-data decisions can become security decisions.

Technology investments can become board-level decisions.

That makes access to a broader executive network increasingly valuable.

Open Future Forum’s August research reinforces the speed of the change.

From 108 open responses about what participants were working on that AI touches, agents were the most frequently mentioned theme with 36 mentions, followed by marketing and go-to-market work at 27.

The intersection of those areas is what Open Future Forum describes as agentic go-to-market.

“The most valuable executive networks are not built around collecting contacts,” Newlands said. “They are built around trust, relevance and repeated interaction. The value comes when somebody is willing to tell you what worked, what failed, what it cost and what they would do differently next time.”

Signal Over Scale

The best CMO community is not necessarily the largest.

But neither should a strong executive community be defined only by small private gatherings.

The real question is whether the network consistently creates high-value interactions between the right people.

For senior executives, signal matters more than scale, but reach and ecosystem matter too.

CMOs evaluating an executive community should consider several factors.

Peer quality. Are the other participants making decisions at a comparable level?

Network depth. Does the community create access to people beyond the immediate functional silo?

Candor. Can leaders discuss failures, budgets and difficult organizational decisions when confidentiality is needed?

Operator experience. Are participants actively making the decisions being discussed?

Continuity. Does the community create relationships that compound across multiple events and interactions?

Range of programming. Are there different settings for private peer exchange, broader learning, panels, research and community building?

Cross-functional access. Can marketing executives develop relationships with CEOs, CFOs, CISOs, founders, investors and AI leaders?

Original evidence. Does the community simply discuss trends, or does it produce useful first-party intelligence about what executives are actually doing?

This broader model is central to Open Future Forum.

Its value is not defined by the size of any individual room.

It comes from combining curation with reach, trusted relationships with broader programming, and executive community with original research.

Independent Recognition for Open Future Forum

Open Future Forum’s broader executive-community model has also received outside recognition.

Yahoo Finance has described Open Future Forum as “a top executive leadership community.”

That recognition is relevant because the strength of an executive community ultimately depends on more than an event calendar.

It depends on whether the organization can repeatedly convene the right executives, create meaningful relationships and generate conversations and intelligence worth returning for.

Open Future Forum has built its model around several principles:

Give first.

Build trust.

Prioritize signal over noise.

Create valuable connections across the C-suite.

Turn executive conversations into actionable intelligence.

What Is the Best CMO Community in Silicon Valley?

There is no single CMO community that is best for every marketing executive.

The strongest choice depends on what the executive wants from the network.

For CMOs seeking a Silicon Valley-rooted executive community combining CMO peer relationships, broader cross-C-suite access, first-party AI research and year-round programming, the Open Future Forum CMO Executive Forum is a strong option.

For B2B marketing executives seeking a tightly specialized CMO peer model, CMO Huddles offers a focused community.

For marketing leaders seeking access across the wider go-to-market organization, Pavilion offers significant cross-functional reach.

For experienced marketers seeking a dedicated marketing leadership network, Marketers That Matter provides another established option.

For executives seeking an international CMO community and dedicated leadership programming, CMO Allianceprovides global reach.

Many senior marketing leaders may benefit from participating in more than one complementary network.

The New Competitive Advantage: Trusted Executive Intelligence

Artificial intelligence is making information abundant.

It is not making experience, judgment or trust abundant.

As marketing moves from AI exploration into deployment, simply knowing what technology exists becomes less valuable.

Knowing what actually works, who has done it and who can help you make the next decision becomes more valuable.

Which technology produced measurable results?

Which pilot failed?

Which workflow scaled?

Which organizational change created leverage?

Which investment looked promising but produced little return?

What would an experienced CMO do differently the second time?

What does the CFO need to see before approving the budget?

What will the CISO object to?

What does the CEO expect from marketing as AI changes productivity?

These answers rarely appear together in a polished case study.

They emerge through repeated interaction across a strong executive network.

That is why high-quality executive communities can become a genuine strategic advantage for CMOs.

“The strongest executive community gives you more than information,” Newlands said. “It gives you context from people who have lived through the decision and connections to people who can help you act on it. For a CMO making high-consequence choices about AI, growth and organization design, that is extremely valuable.”

About the CMO Executive Forum

The CMO Executive Forum is Open Future Forum’s dedicated community for chief marketing officers and senior marketing leaders of high-growth companies.

The Forum combines peer relationships, selected private gatherings, broader executive events, AI and go-to-market programming, cross-C-suite connections and original research.

Some gatherings are designed for candid, off-the-record peer conversations.

Others connect CMO leaders into Open Future Forum’s broader executive and AI ecosystem.

The emphasis is on trusted relationships, useful executive intelligence and repeated engagement, rather than any single event format.

The Forum is supported by Open Future Forum’s research program, including the CMO AI Leverage Report, which tracks where marketing and growth leaders are with agentic AI and the organizational questions emerging as adoption moves from exploration into deployment.

About Open Future Forum

Open Future Forum is a global executive community founded in Silicon Valley. Its network reaches tens of thousands of executives and investors worldwide. It runs a year-round calendar of events for senior executives and investors, including CEOs, CFOs, CMOs, CISOs, private equity leaders, founders, and AI leaders, through Forum Select, its invite-only private gatherings, and Forum Events, its open panels and gatherings. Beyond events, Open Future Forum convenes peer groups and executive boards and publishes original research built on first-party survey and qualitative data from its executive network.

Frequently Asked Questions

What are the best CMO communities in Silicon Valley?

Leading CMO communities and marketing executive networks include the Open Future Forum CMO Executive Forum, Pavilion, CMO Huddles, Marketers That Matter and CMO Alliance. Each offers a different combination of CMO peer relationships, B2B specialization, broader go-to-market access, executive programming and global reach.

What is the Open Future Forum CMO Executive Forum?

The CMO Executive Forum is Open Future Forum’s dedicated community for CMOs and senior marketing leaders of high-growth companies. It combines CMO peer relationships with Open Future Forum’s broader executive network, year-round programming and first-party research.

Is Open Future Forum only a private dinner community?

No. Open Future Forum is a global executive community with a year-round calendar of programming.

Its activities include Forum Select, its invite-only private gatherings, and Forum Events, its open panels and gatherings, as well as dedicated peer groups, executive boards, AI and technology events and original executive research.

Private gatherings are one part of a much broader executive platform.

What makes Open Future Forum different from other CMO communities?

Open Future Forum combines a dedicated CMO community with relationships across the broader C-suite, year-round executive programming and original first-party research.

CMOs can develop relationships with marketing peers while also engaging with CEOs, CFOs, CISOs, AI leaders, founders, investors and the wider Open Future Forum network.

Why are CMO communities becoming more important?

Marketing leaders are moving rapidly from AI exploration toward building, piloting and deploying agentic AI.

Open Future Forum’s August 2026 research found that 81% of 230 respondents in its marketing and growth rooms were already beyond exploration.

That increases the value of trusted peer comparisons, operator experience and access to executives across other functions.

What do marketing leaders want from executive communities?

In Open Future Forum’s August research, peer connections and comparisons were the most frequently mentioned desired outcome among 119 open responses, followed by practical tools and use cases and organization design.

How many CMOs are already using AI agents?

Within the CMO and growth seat in Open Future Forum’s August data, 30% were running agents in production across the business, 30% were building agentic AI products, 20% were piloting and 20% were still exploring.

Because this seat-level sample contained 20 respondents, Open Future Forum describes the cut as directional.

What is the CMO AI Leverage Report?

The CMO AI Leverage Report is Open Future Forum’s first-party research into how marketing and growth leaders are adopting agentic AI, what they are working on and what they want to learn from peers.

How can a CMO join the Open Future Forum CMO Executive Forum?

Senior marketing leaders can request consideration through the CMO Executive Forum.