Read time 10 minutes
Why it matters:
This blog provides marketers an objective view of why Optimove's Positionless Marketing Platform ranks #1 in AI capabilities that matter most by empowering individual marketers with data power, creative power, and optimization power. The Gartner rankings validate that this integrated approach, where marketers control the full workflow from insight to execution, performs at the highest levels when measured against industry standards.
Optimove achieved a rare Trifecta in the Gartner report:
Understanding these results helps marketing leaders evaluate whether this model can drive customer loyalty and ROI their organization requires.
Key takeaways:
Gartner released its 2025 Critical Capabilities for Multichannel Marketing Hubs. It evaluated 11 vendors across critical capabilities and use cases. Optimove ranked #1 in Foundational AI & Analytics and Prescriptive Intelligence for critical capabilities and placed in the top three across all four use cases.
These rankings provide data points for understanding how Positionless Marketing, an approach where individual marketers can move from insight to execution within a single platform, performs when evaluated against industry-standard criteria.
In addition, the combination of #1 intelligence, #2 execution, and #3 optimization is rare. It demonstrates that Optimove’s platform:
It shows that when AI, execution, and optimization are unified, rather than siloed across different teams, performance improves across every dimension Gartner measures.
Gartner evaluated vendors across 10 critical capabilities. Optimove's performance:
#1 Rankings (2 categories):
#2 Rankings (2 categories):
#3 Rankings (2 categories):
Together, these #1, #2, and #3 rankings form the Optimove “Trifecta” in Gartner’s Critical Capabilities for Multichannel Marketing Hubs
A combined performance that demonstrates leadership across data analysis, creative execution, and campaign optimization, encompassing the capabilities Positionless Marketing enables.
Gartner's 2025 Critical Capabilities for Multichannel Marketing Hubs evaluates vendors based on 10 specific critical capabilities and four use cases, not vision statements. Each category represents critical capabilities that marketing organizations actually need to execute their strategies and evaluates use cases that marketers regularly encounter. These include:
Foundational AI & Analytics critical capability measures a platform's ability to unify customer data, build predictive models, create sophisticated segments, and surface insights without requiring specialized data science resources.
Prescriptive Intelligence critical capability evaluates how well a platform recommends specific actions—which customers to target, what messages to send, when to reach out, and through which channels.
Journey and Campaign Execution use case assesses how effectively platforms manage multichannel campaigns and orchestrate customer experiences across touchpoints.
Real-Time Orchestration use case measures how quickly platforms can respond to customer behavior as it happens, from event detection through message delivery.
Optimization and Prioritization use case evaluates testing frameworks, holdout management, statistical rigor, and the ability to prove incremental lift.
Workflow Innovation use case assesses how platforms are adapting to new ways of working, including AI-assisted campaign creation and automation that reduces manual tasks.
Positionless Marketing is predicated on a specific hypothesis: that individual marketers can operate more effectively when they have direct access to AI-powered analytics, prescriptive guidance, and multichannel execution within a unified platform, rather than depending on specialized teams for each function.
The Gartner rankings provide evidence for this approach across multiple dimensions:
The #1 ranking in Foundational AI & Analytics critical capability indicates that the platform makes sophisticated analytics accessible to marketers. This is central to Positionless Marketing, as it provides marketers with embedded intelligence throughout the UI, eliminating the need to wait for analysts or data science teams.
The evaluation criteria include the ability to build predictive models, create behavioral segments, and surface actionable insights without requiring technical expertise. High performance here is a direct result of Optimove's ability to provide marketers with customer and campaign intelligence powered by AI agents, including the OptiBot Agent and the Self-Optimizing Journey and Campaigns Agents.
The #1 ranking in Prescriptive Intelligence for critical capability demonstrates that the platform provides specific, actionable recommendations rather than just data. This addresses a core challenge in marketing operations: the gap between insight and action.
Traditional workflows require marketers to wait for other teams to analyze data, develop hypotheses, and coordinate with them to test and execute. Prescriptive intelligence that recommends next-best actions, optimal timing, and channel selection enables individual marketers to move from analysis to execution without waiting on others.
The #2 rankings in Journey and Campaign Execution and Real-Time Orchestration use cases show that the platform provides the operational capabilities needed to act on insights and recommendations.
Having strong AI and prescriptive capabilities matters only if marketers can execute on those insights. These rankings indicate that individual marketers can orchestrate complex, multichannel campaigns and respond to customer behavior in real time, that are capabilities that traditionally required coordination across campaign management, technical, and channel specialist teams.
The #3 ranking in Optimization and Prioritization use case indicates capabilities for testing, measurement, and learning. Positionless Marketing requires not just the ability to execute but to learn and improve systematically.
The evaluation criteria include A/B testing, holdout groups, statistical rigor, and proving incremental lift. These capabilities enable individual marketers to validate decisions and improve performance without requiring separate analytics resources.
The pattern across all aforementioned six categories shows Optimove leads in AI-related capabilities, with strong performance in execution, and has competitive capabilities in optimization. These all align with foundational elements of Positionless Marketing.
The approach requires:
Strong performance in AI without strong execution would limit practical application. Strong execution without AI would require manual analysis and coordination. The combination indicates a platform structured to enable the marketing independence that Positionless Marketing unleashes.
Industry Context: Why This Matters Now
Gartner's emphasis on AI-related capabilities reflects broader industry trends. Two of the six aforementioned rankings explicitly focus on AI, and the report identifies "agentic AI," where AI agents interpret goals and take autonomous action as an emerging requirement.
This shift has implications for how marketing teams structure work:
Traditional Model:
Positionless Marketing Model:
The Gartner rankings suggest that platforms built around the Positionless Marketing model, with AI and execution integrated rather than separated, can perform at the highest levels across both dimensions.
Gartner's framework is designed to help organizations match vendor capabilities to their specific needs. To make this framework actionable, Optimove created the Business Fit Simulator, enabling marketers to plot their business goals against vendor scores and quickly see which vendors fit best.
The approach: identify priority use cases, weight categories by importance, and evaluate vendors against weighted criteria.
Organizations should consider:
If predictive modeling and analytics are priorities, Foundational AI & Analytics rankings provide relevant data. The evaluation assesses whether platforms can deliver sophisticated analytics without requiring specialized data science resources.
If guidance on what actions to take is critical, Prescriptive Intelligence rankings matter. The evaluation measures whether platforms can recommend specific next steps rather than just presenting data.
If operational efficiency and campaign management are challenges, Journey and Campaign Execution rankings are relevant. The evaluation assesses how well platforms handle complex, multichannel orchestration.
If real-time customer engagement is important, Real-Time Orchestration rankings provide insight. The evaluation measures latency from event detection through message delivery.
If proving incremental value is a requirement, Optimization and Prioritization rankings indicate testing and measurement capabilities.
The rankings provide data points. Validation requires seeing how capabilities work with specific requirements and data.
The Gartner results reflect architectural choices. Platforms evaluated in Critical Capabilities reports are scored on current capabilities, not roadmaps.
Several architectural elements enable high performance across both AI and execution categories:
Unified Data Foundation: AI capabilities and execution capabilities run on the same data infrastructure, eliminating integration latency and ensuring consistency between analysis and action.
Embedded Intelligence: Predictive models, recommendations, and optimization are built into core workflows rather than existing as separate tools that require manual coordination.
Explainable AI: Recommendations include reasoning, allowing marketers to understand and validate suggestions rather than treating AI as a black box.
Continuous Learning: Models improve automatically as new data arrives, without requiring manual retraining or data science intervention.
These architectural choices support the Positionless Marketing approach by reducing dependencies and enabling individual marketers to operate across the full workflow.
Optimove’s #1, #2, and #3 rankings across Gartner’s most critical categories for Multichannel Marketing Hubs offer powerful validation that Positionless Marketing is not just a concept, but a proven framework that elevates marketer independence and performance.
The Trifecta Optimove achieved demonstrates:
The Gartner rankings provide evidence that Positionless Marketing, as implemented in Optimove, performs at the highest levels when evaluated against industry-standard criteria.
For organizations evaluating marketing technology:
The rankings indicate what's possible when platforms integrate AI and execution rather than treating them as separate concerns. High performance in Foundational AI & Analytics and Prescriptive Intelligence, combined with strong performance in execution, suggests that the integration works.
The pattern across categories shows consistent performance rather than strength in one area at the expense of others. This matters for organizations seeking platforms that enable end-to-end workflows.
The evaluation methodology provides a framework for validation. Gartner scores vendors on specific, measurable capabilities. Organizations can use the same framework to evaluate how platforms perform against their specific requirements.
About the Report
Gartner, Critical Capabilities for Multichannel Marketing Hubs,
by Tia Smart, Audrey Brosnan, Greg Carlucci, Suzanne Schwartz, Julian Poulter, Matt Moorut, Julia Multedo,
Publication date: 23 September 2025
Gartner Disclaimer
Gartner does not endorse any vendor, product or service depicted in its research publications, and does not advise technology users to select only those vendors with the highest ratings or other designation. Gartner research publications consist of the opinions of Gartner's research organization and should not be construed as statements of fact. Gartner disclaims all warranties, expressed or implied, with respect to this research, including any warranties of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose.
Gartner Ranks Optimove #1 in AI Capabilities
In this Gartner report, Optimove ranks #1 in AI capabilities that matter most. Gartner rankings validate the power of Positionless Marketing.
Rony Vexelman is Optimove’s VP of Marketing. Rony leads Optimove’s marketing strategy across regions and industries.
Previously, Rony was Optimove's Director of Product Marketing leading product releases, customer marketing efforts and analyst relations. Rony holds a BA in Business Administration and Sociology from Tel Aviv University and an MBA from UCLA Anderson School of Management.
