About the Event

The Gartner Marketing Symposium/Xpo is Gartner's annual North American conference for senior marketing leaders, held June 8-10, 2026 at the Gaylord Rockies Resort and Convention Center in Denver, Colorado. It is the larger of the two annual Gartner Marketing Symposium editions - the other being the London edition in May - and draws more than 2,000 CMOs and marketing leaders. The event is built on Gartner's proprietary independent research and is structured to translate analyst findings directly into actionable strategic guidance for marketing executives. The 2026 edition continues the series focus on CMO leadership in an AI-driven world, framing the conference around how strategic, structural, and cultural transformation can unlock growth and strengthen trust amid constant technological and market change.

Audience & Attendees

The conference is designed for CMOs and senior marketing leaders across industries, with dedicated programming for digital marketing leaders, customer experience and loyalty leaders, marketing operations and analytics leaders, and brand marketing leaders. A CMO Circle Program operates as an application-only, invitation-required forum for chief marketing officers within the broader agenda. The conference draws a primarily North American audience of enterprise marketing decision-makers, with additional international attendance. Gartner clients with pre-purchased access and non-clients who have registered as full-conference attendees both have equal access to all sessions and analyst one-on-one meetings.

Programme Structure

The three-day programme is organised around more than 70 research-driven sessions delivered by 20+ Gartner analysts alongside guest speakers. Session formats span keynote presentations, breakout sessions, interactive workshops, analyst-led roundtables, Meetups, and private 30-minute one-on-one meetings with Gartner analysts - available exclusively to fully registered paid attendees on a first-come, first-served basis via pre-registration through Gartner Conference Navigator. An Xpo component hosts technology vendors and solution providers for solution assessment alongside the conference. The CMO Circle Program runs as a parallel curated track within the three-day schedule. Gartner's annual CMO Spend Survey results and Marketing Technology Survey benchmarks are typically presented at this event ahead of wider publication, making it a primary source for the industry's most-referenced marketing budget and MarTech data.

Main Topics

The 2026 agenda is structured around five core thematic priorities. Brand as a Strategic Growth Lever addresses how CMOs activate brand to guide innovation, protect trust, and drive measurable business performance. CMO Leadership and C-Suite Influence covers how marketing leaders expand strategic executive presence and reshape the CMO role as a growth driver. Customer Experience and Understanding explores adapting to new channels and AI to improve engagement and loyalty. Marketing Technology, Data, and Analytics focuses on building AI-ready data foundations and driving ROI through intelligent operations. The fifth priority - AI Strategy and Transformation - runs as a unifying lens across all tracks. The opening keynote for the 2026 Denver edition has not been formally announced; the 2026 London edition opened with "Supercharging Marketing's AI Advantage - Leading the Race to 2030" by Gartner VP advisors Kristina LaRocca-Cerrone and Jay Wilson, establishing the AI leadership theme for the full series.

Closing Session

The conference concludes at the end of Day 3 on June 10, following the final breakout and interactive sessions.

‍