The 2025 State of Marketing & Trends Report: Data from 1700+ Global Marketers

 

Discover the trends, winning opportunities, and challenges brands will face this year, with data from 1,700+ global B2B and B2C marketers.

Written by: Maxwell Iskiev

If you’re anything like me, you probably wish you had more time and resources to get through your work, ponder game-changing ideas, brush up on digital marketing industry trends, and give your audiences unforgettable brand experiences.

I get it. That’s why I put together this overview of top marketing trends for 2025. I’ll share some of my favorite highlights from HubSpot’s recent survey of more than 1,700 B2B and B2C marketers, exploring the key trends, tools, and challenges that today’s marketing professionals are focused on the most.

Plus, keep reading to hear from leaders at OpenAI, Asana, Adobe, Bitly, and more. 

Top Digital Marketing Trends in 2025

1. AI is helping marketers keep up with increasing content needs.

In 2024, AI usage among marketers rose at a staggering rate. And while there are countless AI tools available to help with a wide variety of marketing needs, today’s marketers reported they have been particularly focused on using AI tools to create content to keep up with their increasing content needs.

Interestingly, different marketers use AI to create content in different ways. While some report using AI to develop entire drafts from scratch, one of the most common AI use cases was to repurpose content from one format to another.

For example, I’ve found that marketers may use AI tools to turn a blog post into a video script, or a video clip into a social media post. AI has enabled many marketing teams to increase their content output without having to hire more people.

Diving a little deeper, here are the top AI use cases identified by our survey respondents:

1. Content creation (using generative AI to write copy, create images, get ideas, etc.) (43%)
2. Research (using generative AI for market research, to find datasets, summarize articles, etc.) (34%)
3. Brainstorming (using generative AI to brainstorm content ideas) (27%)
4. Learning how to do things (using generative AI to learn an Excel function, debug SQL code, etc.) (40%)
5. Data analysis/reporting (using generative AI to analyze or manipulate marketing data) (35%)
6. Take notes or summarize meetings (27%)

When it comes to the types of content that marketers have been using generative AI to produce, I’ve found that social media posts, emails, blog posts, topic ideas, images, and product descriptions are the most common.

In addition, many marketers use tools like HubSpot’s Content Marketing Software to turn existing blog posts into social posts, newsletter content, audio files, and other content forms in just a few minutes.

Curious about using AI for content creation? HubSpot’s Free AI Content Creator is a great place to start.

It’s also important to clarify that while many of our respondents were focused on using AI to generate content, AI is poised to grow beyond content generation into a range of related domains.

As OpenAI’s Head of Strategic Marketing Dane Vahey notes, “Marketers have been scratching the surface of AI, but so far, it’s been mostly for content generation. In 2025, we expect to see marketers make the leap to using AI for creative ideation, data-driven decision-making, workflow automation, and strategic brainstorming.”

2. Many marketers struggle to integrate AI into their workflows.

Despite the growing popularity of AI content generation tools, our survey found that many marketers are still struggling to learn to use these tools effectively and integrate them into their workflows.

As Briana Rogers, VP of Marketing at Miro, shared, “Marketers will have to learn how to integrate AI into their work.”

She continued, “The space is moving so quickly and we need to experiment with everything… from the more well-established use cases — like leveraging machine learning to improve ad buying, or creating predictive customer value models — to newer spaces, like identifying patterns in user research and data, assisting in creative development, and building full customer campaigns that are powered by AI.”

Our survey found that while marketers are increasingly investing in AI, many remain less than confident about their ability to use these tools.

Specifically, just 47% strongly or somewhat agreed that they had a clear understanding of how to use AI in their marketing strategy, and 48% strongly or somewhat agreed that they had a clear understanding of how to measure the impact of AI in their marketing strategy.

Moreover, even among marketers who understand the basics of AI implementation, integrating these tools ethically can also pose a major challenge.

As Dr. Rebecca Hinds, Head of Asana’s Work Innovation Lab, warns, “Gen Z is sounding the alarm: They’re more concerned than any other demographic about whether their organizations can trust generative AI vendors to uphold responsible AI practices.”

She goes on, “Vendors must lead with transparency, clear AI principles, and a commitment to ethical innovation to gain the support of Gen Z in 2025” — and doing so can be quite difficult for many marketers.

3. AI is making a major impact — but it shouldn’t replace humans.

While many content marketers (myself included) have voiced concerns about the potential for AI tools to replace human content creators, our recent data suggests that this is unlikely to happen.

Past HubSpot survey data shows that the vast majority of marketers still edit content that’s been generated by AI, suggesting that AI tools are acting more like assistants than like fully-fledged, human content developers.

Plus, neither customers nor search engines are likely to reward an excessive reliance on AI-generated content.

For example, a recent post from HubSpot Senior Marketing Manager Curtis del Principe highlighted the punishment handed down to one agency after they farmed thousands of posts with AI in what’s been called an “SEO Heist.”

Other research has highlighted the risk of plagiarism when using AI-generated content, and Google’s Gemini (formerly Bard) actually allows you to double-check its output by providing links to sources that confirm the information it provides.

In other words, AI is definitely making a major impact on the world of content generation — but I don’t think it’s likely to fully replace human marketers.

4. Social media is the highest ROI marketing channel.

In 2025, the top positions marketers report their organizations are hiring for are content-related, with a specific emphasis on social content.

Notably, this trend spans across organizational hierarchies, with an increased focus on social media for everyone from the individual contributors responsible for creating posts to managers and directors responsible for content strategy.

When we asked marketers to select the top three marketing roles that they expected to be the top priority to recruit in 2025, they listed the following positions:

1. Content Creator (15%)
2. Social Media Coordinator (13%)
3. Social Media Strategist (13%)
4. Creative Assistant (13%)
5. Creative Director (12%)

Clearly, social media remains a major priority for today’s marketers. But what is driving this ongoing focus on social?

Our 2024 Consumer Trends Survey found that social media is actually the preferred product discovery channel for Gen Z and Millennials, with Gen X and Boomers also quickly warming up to it. In fact, 64% of Gen Z, 59% of Millennials, and 47% of Gen X respondents reported having discovered a product on social media in the past three months.

This survey also found that 17% of social media users reported having bought a product in-app in the past three months, one in four bought something based on an influencer’s recommendation, and 19% sent a DM (Direct Message) for customer service.

On platforms such as Instagram, TikTok, and Facebook, marketers can set up virtual stores for users to purchase without ever leaving the app. From brand discovery to influencer recommendations to in-app purchases and customer service via DMs, social media can become a one-stop shop for the entire customer journey.

As such, it’s no surprise that marketers are quickly embracing social selling. Our most recent social selling survey found that 87% of marketers say this approach is effective, and 59% report driving more social sales than in past years.

5. Facebook still proves to be a powerful platform for marketers.

So, social media is clearly the place to be. But what platforms are actually delivering the most value for marketers?

Despite what you may have heard about Facebook being “dead,” it’s still the most popular platform for marketers, with 58% of survey respondents reporting that they leverage the platform as part of their marketing strategy.

Marketers also report that Facebook has had the highest ROI of any social media platform over the past year, with 40% of respondents indicating that the platform is among the top three drivers of ROI.

As a result, I wasn’t surprised to see that more than two out of three marketers plan to maintain the same level of investment or increase their investment into their Facebook marketing efforts in 2025.

6. The Threads vs X showdown continues.

While Facebook remains a leader in the realm of social media marketing, the showdown between its Threads platform and X (formerly Twitter) remains ongoing.

Our latest survey data shows that 68% of marketers plan to continue or expand their investment into X in 2025, while 59% plan to continue or expand their investment into Threads. In addition, 8% of marketers plan to try Threads for the first time in 2025, and just 18% of marketers list X as among the top-three ROI-driving social media platforms.

7. Visual storytelling is on the rise.

While an effective content strategy will typically leverage a range of platforms, our most recent survey data suggests that visual formats such as short-form video, images, and live-streaming video are particularly popular.

These forms of visual storytelling were among the most commonly used content formats in 2024, and in 2025, marketers plan to increase their investment into all three at higher rates than all other formats.

This doesn’t surprise me. After all, in 2024, all three of these visually-focused formats were reported as among the highest ROI formats, and social media platforms that focus on visual content (such as YouTube, Instagram, and TikTok) are also seeing increased investment in 2025 at rates higher than other channels.

Indeed, our blog team has been predicting a short-form video renaissance since the rise of TikTok during the pandemic, and today, there’s hardly any contest.

Short-form video is now the number one content marketing format, with most marketers saying it offers them higher ROI than any other format.

Specifically, when asked about the formats they use most, marketers listed the following (I bolded the visual formats to illustrate just how prevalent they have become):

• Short-form video (29%)
• Images (29%)
• Interviews (22%)
• Blog posts (19%)
• Live streaming video (19%)

Similarly, when asked which formats deliver the highest ROI, they highlighted:

• Short-form video (21%)
• Images (19%)
• Live streaming video (16%)
• Interviews (15%)
• Blog posts (15%)

Importantly, this isn’t just a matter of where last year’s marketing dollars were spent — it’s also a trend that’s reflected in marketers’ plans for the future. When asked where they plan to increase investment in 2025, respondents mentioned:

• Short-form video (17%)
• Images (15%)
• UGC (14%)
• Live streaming (14%)
• Podcasts or other audio content (13%)

And similarly, on the social media front, respondents reported that the following social formats would be seeing increased investment in 2025:

• Youtube (30%)
• Instagram (29%)
• TikTok (28%)
• LinkedIn (26%)
• Facebook (26%)

Priya Gill, VP & Global Head of Marketing for SurveyMonkey, has found substantial success with visual marketing.

She explains, “Short-form video, images, and user-generated content are impactful because they align with how today’s audiences consume and engage with content — quickly, visually, and authentically. These formats grab attention in seconds and allow businesses to tell compelling stories that resonate.”

This even applies to us at HubSpot, too — our own blog team is testing out short-form videos to promote content. That’s because marketers are seeing that video-centric social media platforms are the most effective, and they offer the best ROI.

8. Niche influencers are emerging as a key channel.

While influencer marketing has been an important marketing channel for some time, our latest survey highlights the growing role of niche influencers in particular.

In 2024, marketers reported leveraging and benefiting from small-scale influencers — that is, influencers with fewer than 100,000 followers — more than larger-scale influencers.

Our respondents noted that despite their relatively small number of followers, these niche influencers offered access to audiences with strong brand loyalty and trust, making them especially valuable.

Parimal Deshpande, Senior Director of Product Marketing for Adobe Express, agrees that partnering with a content creator who resonates with your target audience can be incredibly valuable, arguing, “The key to successful marketing lies in building authenticity and trust.”

He continues, “Personality-led content, delivered through creators and channels that resonate with audiences, is integral to achieving that.”

As such, it makes sense that nearly one in four respondents listed influencer marketing as a top trend for 2024, with 68% reporting that they had partnered with a niche influencer in the last year.

In contrast, only one in four survey respondents reported working with an influencer who had between 100,000 and one million followers, and just 7% worked with influencers with audiences of over one million.

To learn more about how real-world marketers are working with influencers, we asked Bitly CMO Tara Robertson to shed some light on her organization’s recent experience with influencer marketing.

She shared, “In the second half of 2024, we launched an influencer pilot program on Instagram to better understand how established personalities and communities could further drive content, conversation, and awareness beyond Bitly’s own channel.”

And what happened?

Robertson reports, “The results were strong. Compared to our average Instagram performance, we saw 5X higher the impressions and video views, 6X higher engagement, and 82% growth in followers. As a result, partnering with influencers is becoming a larger part of our overall marketing strategy as a way to broaden our reach, connect more effectively with our target audiences, and show measurable results while still maintaining trust and authenticity.”

Diving deeper, when we asked respondents about the benefits of working with these smaller-scale influencers and creators, the number one reason they cited was that these niche influencers were more trusted by their followers or subscribers.

Beyond this, respondents also noted that smaller influencers give them access to more niche, tighter-knit communities, as well as generally being a lot less expensive than influencers with larger audiences.

In other words, follower count isn’t everything. Our recent Social Media Trends Report found that most marketers say “quality of content” is the most important factor when determining which influencers to partner with, rather than just how many followers or subscribers an influencer has.

Indeed, as Aaron Cort, Head of Marketing, Growth and GTM for Craft Ventures points out, “People have such a high bar for what they act on these days, for both business and consumers.”

In this environment, “Influencers help bridge that gap behind a dedicated effort toward establishing positive brand affinity and word of mouth first.”

9. Data privacy changes remain a challenge.

From iOS changes to GDPR and Google’s plans to phase out third-party cookies, I’ve seen firsthand that increased data privacy regulations have posed a substantial hurdle for marketing industry growth over the past few years.

As a marketer myself, I know these changes can be frustrating — but with 84% of respondents in our recent consumer trends survey reporting that they believe data privacy is a human right, public opinion is definitely shifting toward having more safeguards around personal data.

As such, it’s understandable that nearly nine out of ten marketers (88%) reported that data privacy changes such as GDPR, iOS, and Google phasing out third-party cookies impacted their overall marketing strategy over the past year.

The good news is, there are lots of tools and strategies that today’s organizations are pursuing to balance effective marketing with adequately protecting people’s data.

To learn more about these alternatives, I’d recommend checking out this blog post, which explores several solutions in depth.

10. Personalization is essential.

According to our latest survey results, 86% of marketers report that their customers get a somewhat or very personalized experience with their brand. Even more impressive, a whopping 94% report that offering a personalized customer experience impacts their company’s sales.

In other words, the data shows that offering a highly personalized experience is more essential than ever.

At the same time, studies show that most marketers lack crucial information about their audience, with only 65% saying they have high-quality data on their target demographic.

Indeed, when we asked marketers what they knew about their target audience, less than half reported knowing where they consume content, their basic demographic information, or their interests and hobbies, let alone the kinds of products they are interested in or insights about their shopping habits.

To address these challenges, I’ve found HubSpot’s Marketing Analytics tool can be incredibly valuable. This tool provides helpful insights into customer behavior, preferences, and engagement patterns, helping marketers create more personalized and effective campaigns.

11. Marketers still struggle with disconnected data and silos.

To personalize your marketing efforts effectively, you need a single source of truth. Unfortunately, our data suggests that this remains a challenge, with many marketers reporting that they struggle with disconnected data sources, company silos, and a lack of a centralized and accessible source of information about their customers.

In fact, just one out of five marketers reported that their marketing data is fully integrated with the tools they use, and 30% shared that the interactions between the various tools they used in their marketing role was either slightly or very disjointed.

Similarly, 28% of respondents felt that it was somewhat or very difficult to get the data they needed from other teams at their company, while 34% felt that it was somewhat or very difficult to share their own data with other teams across their company. These issues create a “crisis of disconnection” that can prevent marketing teams from getting a holistic view of their data, as well as reducing the quality of that data.

Anna James, Work Innovation Analytics Lead at Asana’s Work Innovation Lab, speaks eloquently to the risks of this crisis, sharing: “Marketers are facing extremely high levels of digital burnout as a result of using fragmented tools and systems.”

As such, she argues that “in 2025, success won’t come from adding more technology — it will come from refining and streamlining technology, enabling marketers to focus on creativity and more high-value impact.”

And James is not alone in this perspective. Today’s marketers recognize the power of having a single source of truth to address these challenges of disconnected data and siloed teams: We found that 82% of respondents believe that having a single source of truth for their marketing data is slightly, somewhat, or very beneficial to their organization.

A single source of truth directly addresses the top challenges that emerge when teams are misaligned: A lack of effective communication, sales and marketing teams using different tools, and difficulty sharing data between teams. That’s likely why 69% of marketers report that their CRM is somewhat or very important for the success of their overall marketing strategy.

One of my favorite ways to gain access to a single source of truth is to implement a CRM like HubSpot. HubSpot’s CRM integrates data with tools, cutting across silos and boosting alignment across teams.

12. Being data-driven is no longer a nice-to-have.

While the importance of data is far from new, this year’s survey responses highlight just how critical it has become to ensure your marketing organization is truly data-driven.

Leveraging data effectively helps marketers understand how their various strategies are performing, in turn helping them demonstrate the ROI of their efforts and informing their decision-making on future strategy.

At the same time, we found that using data to understand and target customers has become less salient in the minds of today’s marketers, at least in part because the data landscape has become increasingly challenging due to increasing privacy and security requirements.

In addition, when we asked respondents to identify the greatest challenges they encountered with respect to understanding and gathering data from their target audience, 21% pointed to consumers being less trusting with their personal data, 19% pointed to poor data quality, and 18% noted increased data privacy regulations that reduce access to personal data.

Nevertheless, our research demonstrates that despite these challenges, being data-driven is no longer a nice-to-have. In today’s landscape, aligning a brand’s marketing initiatives with its customers’ values depends on maintaining access to accurate, up-to-date data about those customers.

That’s likely why when asked about the biggest changes in the marketing industry over the last year, 29% emphasized the importance of using data to inform their marketing strategy and 26% noted the importance of using data to demonstrate the ROI and business value of their marketing efforts.

Indeed, the biggest advantages of developing a data-driven marketing strategy that our respondents pointed to were to understand which marketing strategies were most effective (listed by 31% of respondents), to increase the ROI of their marketing efforts (30%), and to reach their target audience more effectively (27%).

As Priya Gill of SurveyMonkey explains, “We’ve found success using data (surveys and polls) to understand what our audiences care most about, keeping content short and snappy, showcasing authenticity, and testing and iterating on our ideas.”

Leveraging data effectively can be quite challenging — but to succeed in today’s business environment, marketers can't afford not to be data-driven.

What’s Next in Marketing Industry Trends

When it comes to the trends defining the current marketing industry, the list above is just the tip of the iceberg. As I put this list together, I was struck over and over again by just how complex and challenging the modern marketing landscape has become.

That’s why visibility into today’s top marketing trends is so critical. While this article includes many of my top trends, for a detailed list of the top tactics, opportunities, challenges, channels, and content marketers will leverage in 2025, I’d definitely recommend checking out our 2025 State of Marketing Report.

After all, when it comes to marketing, I’ve learned that staying up-to-date is essential. So don’t be afraid to dive into the data!

https://tinyurl.com/2yrujd5t

AI Marketing Trends in 2025

 

As artificial intelligence revolutionizes the marketing landscape, businesses must adapt or risk ... [+]

Adobe Stock

6 Trends and the latest practical innovations which will change marketing in the year(s) ahead

We all now know that Generative AI (Gen AI) has already made a huge impact on marketing and the wider world. Yet it will grow dramatically more in the future since, as we will see, many businesses have been surprisingly slow in adapting and adopting it. Plus there are some amazing innovations as we move towards AGI - Artificial General Intelligence where AI will possess the ability to understand, learn, and complete tasks at a level comparable to or exceeding that of a human being.

In this post, I'll cover trends covering both AI strategy and how the GenAI tools are developing. You can learn more in our upcoming free webinar on AI trends in Marketing.

Those of use who have enthusiastically adopted AI in our marketing have become used to the incredible ability of GenAI to create compelling copy, visuals and code when provided with sufficiently detailed prompts. However, we’re also aware of its limitations and that’s what makes the next months and years particularly interesting. It’s already ‘incredible’, i.e. almost unbelievable what it can achieve, yet we are still the early stages, when you think of the limitations of GenAI. To choose just three limitations which I think restrict its use in marketing:

• Individual prompts. It mostly works on individual, specific prompts rather than working through a series of tasks and then taking decisions on the basis of each stage.
• Not truly conversational. It requires you to prompt it, rather than leading the conversation. The outputs are dependent on your skills at prompting, hence all the exhortations to develop prompt engineering skills. To me, a more natural model is where the AI can lead the conversation as exemplified by the AI-led approach of Pi from Inflection rather than the human-prompt led approach seen in ChatGPT, Gemini and Claude. However, these are all moving a more multimodal, conversational direction, which is one of our trends explained below.
• Poor integration with structured data. Yes, it’s good at parsing and creating static content in documents, but third-party tools are mostly required to integrate spreadsheets or databases. Tools introduced recently are already changing this, but there is room for large improvements here.

I’ll now review the main trends that will affect marketing as I see them as we enter 2025, prompted in part by the announcement of Gemini 2.0 by Google at the end of last year which showcased some jaw-dropping improvements we'll see below.

I think it’s generally understood that despite Google investing in AI research and development of Large Language Models (LLMs) for well over a decade it was superseded by OpenAI when it launched ChatGPT and after its code red announcement it has been working hard to fight back and now may be clawing it's way back into the lead.

This is illustrated by the latest AI Chatbot Arena benchmark - which is an open platform for crowdsourced AI benchmarking, developed by researchers at UC Berkeley and LMArena. With over 1,000,000 user votes, the platform ranks the best LLM and AI chatbots.

You can see that the leading models are now from Google according to this ranking and that, from a practical point-of-view, many AI influencers are raving about the power of Google’s AI Studio coupled with Gemini. This enables conversational dialogue with the AI and discussion to improve results from what’s shared on screen such as a web page, email or spreadsheet.

Here’s one marketing-led example which shows the value of this combination, particularly if you are in a marketing team of one who needs advice from and to bounce ideas off the AI - in this case about improving a landing page.

Other videos, such as those in our new premium member module on using AI Studio show how to use these for spreadsheet analysis and learning.

So, that’s a practical illustration of the recent innovation, let’s now take a look at my 6 key trends to watch for in the year(s) ahead. I start with more strategic organizational-level trends related to adoption and then move into more practical trends related to AI development

Trend 1. AI adoption in Marketing

From all the coverage around the impact of AI in marketing, you would think that every marketer is enthusiastically using GenAI day-to-day, but surveys suggest this isn’t the case.

In our Future of Digital Marketing report we produced in partnership again with Technology for Marketing and eCommerce Expo mid last year, we found that around one third of marketers weren’t using GenAI for common marketing applications. The most common applications of AI were, nevertheless, using it to support copywriting for email marketing, organic search and social media.

This is supported by the more recent Econsultancy Future of Marketing 2025 report where less than half of respondents were using it in their regular work.

Trend 2. Managing AI strategically for Marketing

While individuals may be actively using GenAI tools this is quite different from using it coherently across a business. A more strategic use of AI involves:

• A strategy to prioritize adoption of AI use for different roles and use cases
• A playbook or governance plan to focus on specific use cases and tools and exclude others
• Investment in the latest paid for LLMs with the highest quality outputs
• Agreement on how to customize each AI to standardize brand tone-of-voice and audience appropriate style
• Using a prompt library to save time and get consistent results for common use cases
• A structured plan or programme to develop skills

Our research suggests that many businesses aren’t using AI in a strategic way since they don’t have a playbook to follow or training in place.

A Smart Insights, we believe controls are essential to maintain quality as we show in our AI for marketing governance policy template and article which wasn’t written by AI (apart from collaborating on the structure, an example of Smarter Marketing).

To support a structured plan or programme to develop skills we have built many learning courses for our premium members explaining how to create an AI strategy and with 'hands-on' modules on how to use ChatGPT and Gemini in marketing.

Trend 3. Multimodality

This term was highlighted to me since its front and centre in Google’s new AI Studio: https://aistudio.google.com/live and their December announcement. It’s a trend we have seen with the evolution of ChatGPT that now supports multiple inputs and outputs.

Key Aspects of Multimodality in AI are:

1. Multiple Input Types

The AI can process diverse inputs, such as:
• Text: Written or spoken language.
• Images: Photos, drawings, or visual data - possible in Gemini 2.0 via a web cam and screen sharing
• Audio: Speech, music, or sound effects
• Video: Moving images and context over time - also possible in Gemini 2.0

2. Cross-Modality Understanding

The AI can link information between modalities. For example:
• Generating a caption for an image (linking text to an image).
• Answering a question about a video (text linked to video).
• Transcribing audio into text while identifying the speaker’s emotions.

3. Contextual Integration
Multimodal AI integrates contextual information from different modalities to provide richer insights.

An example is where a virtual assistant uses speech (audio), the meaning of words (text), and visual cues (images or gestures from a camera) to interact naturally with a user. This is what Gemini is achieving through its examples.

4. Generative Capabilities

These include:
• Advanced multimodal AI systems can generate content across modalities:
• Text-to-image generation (e.g., DALL-E from OpenAI, not available in Gemini 2.0).
• Video summaries from text descriptions.
• Audio generation from written scripts.

Trend 3. Canvasses and Collaboration

This is perhaps a minor trend compared to the others, but it represents a big change in how we interact with the AI.

Traditionally, in tools like Photoshop or Canva, the “canvas” is where a user places elements (text, images, etc.) to create a design.

Within GenAI a canvas refers to the virtual workspace or blank digital surface where AI-generated images, designs, or artwork are created and the user can potentially interact with the Canvas.

I first noticed this trend with the release of Claude’s Artifacts in August 2024 which has been described as a ‘magic window’. It generates standalone pieces of content — be it code, documents, or interactive elements — that you can view and manipulate alongside your conversation with Claude.

This was followed up in October by OpenAI introducing Canvas, a new interface for working with ChatGPT on writing and coding projects that go beyond simple chat. Canvas opens in a separate window, allowing you and ChatGPT to collaborate on a project.

Trend 4. AI Shovelware

We’ve looked at many of the positive trends, here now is a negative trend.

AI Shovelware is now often used to refer to poor quality software and video games created by AI, but a trend I’m seeing, and am sure you’re seeing too, is long-form AI generated content from existing content. Here is just one useful example - the Trust Insights 2025 marketing trends report. It’s 90+ pages long, which given how busy we all are, and the ability of AI to summarize, isn’t the smartest move… Actually, it’s an interesting approach and more useful than many research reports since it uses AI to parse the last 90 days of posts and comments - from specific marketing Subreddit topics such as Digital Marketing, r/SEO and r/social media, each amounting to 300,000 to 500,000 words. At Smart Insights, we’ve reviewed Reddit the past few years as a way to understand the latest concerns of our audience, there are plusses as well and minuses of this content.

This article isn’t generated by AI since I still enjoy writing and experimentation has shown me that I think I can write more interesting, engaging, useful and unique content than even the latest LLMs trained on my content. However, I do use GenAI to summarize, working with it collaboratively to add hopefully value through my analysis and recommendations.

Trend 5. The Agentic era

This term was emphasized by Google with their Gemini 2.0 launch when Google Sundar Pichai described them as ‘models that can understand more about the world around you, think multiple steps ahead and take action on your behalf, with your supervision’.

An initial phase of this era is prompt chaining where AI workflows are implemented by combining multiple prompts into a sequence. The output of one prompt serves as the input for the next, allowing the AI to perform complex, multi-step tasks. This approach is needed for breaking down large or intricate problems into smaller, manageable steps while ensuring better control over the AI’s reasoning process.

Google’s Project Mariner is a research prototype built with Gemini 2.0 that explores the future of human-agent interaction. As a research prototype, it’s able to understand and reason across information in your browser screen, including pixels and web elements like text, code, images and forms, and then uses that information via an experimental Chrome extension to complete tasks for you. Here is a demo that illustrates prompt chaining:

This demo is the closest I have seen to what PR Smith, my co-author on Digital Marketing Excellence described back in 2001 as intelligent agents which would shop for you!

ChatGPT is limited in this regard although wrappers can be created with the API to attempt prompt chaining. As a ‘baby step’ towards this, in 2025, OpenAI added scheduled tasks in Beta which gives ChatGPT the ability to create tasks for itself to run later. Tasks can be triggered either at specific times (one-off or recurring) or in the UI.

Trend 6. Quantum Computers

So, this certainly won’t affect you in 2025, practical applications are likely decades off, but there have been significant advancements which have moved it forwards the theory of the past decades where it has been heralded as the future.

This is back to the Google pre-Christmas example where according to Techcrunch, Google says its new Willow quantum chip indicates that multiple universes exist and it offers a benchmark where the speed of computation is mind-boggling:

“Willow’s performance on this benchmark is astonishing: It performed a computation in under five minutes that would take one of today’s fastest supercomputers 10 to the power 25 or 10 septillion years. If you want to write it out, it’s 10,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 years”.

I’m not going to attempt to explain the application of that, it would be nice if it helped us solve the division and hatred of the post-truth world we now live in…

So, these are the trends I see, what about you - do let me know on my LinkedIn - I’m enjoying learning from others.

I hope you enjoy the ride and challenge in the year(s) ahead.

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The 6 Most Powerful AI Marketing Trends That Will Transform Your Business In 2025

ByBernard Marr, Contributor

The quiet hum of AI servers is rapidly drowning out the traditional drumbeat of marketing departments worldwide. As we venture deeper into 2025, this technological revolution isn't just changing how we market – it's fundamentally transforming what marketing means.

Over the last decades of analyzing digital trends, I've never seen such a profound shift in how businesses connect with their customers. While AI and automation are undoubtedly the stars of this show, other fascinating developments are emerging from the wings, from the evolution of influencer culture to a growing emphasis on digital privacy. Let's explore the most significant trends that will shape marketing's future in the coming year.

The Move Towards Dynamic Content Creation

The buzz around generative AI isn't just hype – it's the harbinger of a fundamental shift in content creation. But here's the interesting part: while many marketers are still stuck in the basic ChatGPT-generated blog post phase (a strategy that's increasingly showing its limitations), the real innovators are pushing boundaries we didn't even know existed. They're creating content that adapts in real-time, responding to context and audience sentiment in ways that make traditional personalization look primitive.

What's particularly exciting is how forward-thinking content creators are integrating AI into their creative process itself. They're not just using AI to generate content – they're showing their audiences how to use it in novel ways, creating engaging meta-content that builds authority and drives engagement. In 2025, we'll see the emergence of truly dynamic content that transforms based on viewer behavior, time of day, or even global events, taking the concept of marketing "micro-moments" to an entirely new level.

AI's Strategic Takeover

While AI's role in tactical marketing operations is well established, 2025 will mark its emergence as a crucial strategic partner. We're moving beyond basic data analytics and recommendation systems into an era where AI actively participates in high-level planning and decision-making. Imagine AI systems that can predict future market trends with unprecedented accuracy, simulate entire campaign outcomes before launch, and optimize resource allocation in real time.

This strategic evolution of AI is particularly exciting because it's happening first in marketing departments. As we push into 2025, marketing teams are becoming the proving ground for AI's ability to contribute to strategic business decisions, setting patterns that other business functions will likely follow.

Search Is Dead, Long Live Search

The integration of generative AI into search engines isn't just an upgrade – it's a complete reimagining of how people find information online. With both Google and Bing now embedding AI-generated responses directly into search results, marketers are facing a fundamental shift in how they approach visibility. The traditional SEO playbook isn't just being updated – it's being completely rewritten.

But here's what makes this trend particularly fascinating: as AI chatbots increasingly become the go-to tool for information seeking, we're seeing a shift in user behavior that could rival the move from desktop to mobile. Marketing teams are now grappling with the challenge of not just ranking in traditional search results but also ensuring their brand messages are effectively captured and conveyed through AI-generated responses. This isn't just about keywords anymore – it's about understanding and influencing the AI systems that are becoming the new gatekeepers of information.

Video Marketing Gets A Brain Upgrade

If content is king, video continues to be its crown jewel. The appetite for quick, engaging, "snackable" video content shows no signs of slowing down, particularly among Gen-Z consumers. What's changing is the sophistication of video creation and distribution. AI-driven video production tools are making it possible to create personalized, targeted video content at scale, while new formats like shoppable video and live streaming are opening up exciting new possibilities for brand engagement.

User-generated content remains a powerful force, but the tools and platforms for creating and sharing it are becoming increasingly sophisticated. In 2025, the ability to create, optimize, and distribute video content will become less about technical capability and more about strategic application.

Your Next Influencer Might Not Be Human

Virtual influencers have been around for a while, but 2025 is the year they get smart – really smart. We're moving beyond static digital avatars to AI-powered personalities that can engage in meaningful, real-time interactions with audiences. This isn't just about posting pretty pictures anymore – it's about creating authentic connections through intelligent conversation.

The implications for brands are enormous. Imagine having an influencer who perfectly embodies your brand values, is available 24/7, and can engage with thousands of followers simultaneously in personalized conversations.

The Privacy Paradox

The marketing world has long grappled with the balance between personalization and privacy. As we move into 2025, this balance is becoming more crucial – and more complex – than ever. Smart marketers are adopting what I call "privacy-first personalization," an approach that delivers highly relevant experiences while maintaining transparent and ethical data practices.

This isn't just about compliance with growing regulations – it's about building trust in an era where consumers are increasingly aware of and concerned about their digital footprint. The marketers who succeed in 2025 will be those who can deliver personalized experiences while demonstrating a genuine commitment to protecting consumer privacy.

Looking ahead, it's clear that success in 2025's marketing landscape won't just be about adopting new technologies – it will be about using them thoughtfully and strategically to create genuine value. The most successful marketers won't be those who chase every new trend but those who understand how to integrate these innovations into a coherent strategy that puts the customer first.

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