The State of AI in Marketing. Part 1.

 

The intelligence era has arrived.

Explore the latest data from 1,700+ marketers on where AI is helping them outmarket their competitors.

·     Foreword

AI in the loop will help marketers outlearn, outmarket, and outgrow their competitors

As a marketing leader, the most valuable asset your business has today is your raw marketing intelligence. That marketing intelligence lives inside the minds of your employees, in the experiments you run, the data you get back, and the insights you get from customers.

If you’re not thinking ahead, that intelligence will leave with your best employees or, worse still, be outsourced to AI models.

As part of HubSpot's annual "State of AI" studies, we surveyed over 1,700 marketers from individual contributors to CMOs to understand how, why, when, and where they’re using AI in the marketing process. Our recent data shows that there are still massive gaps between those adopting AI at a transformational level, and those still experimenting. And many still don’t even have their data meaningfully connected to their AI tools.

In this report, we’ll break down the data. But we’ll also teach you how you can take action. Plus, you’ll find a customizable plan you can tailor to your brand. We’re here on the journey, too, and sharing results from our experiments as things evolve by the minute.

 

·     Introduction

Most teams are in the AI game, but few are winning it

To get started, we asked marketing respondents using AI to rate their company and department's level of AI adoption on a scale from "Early" to "Transformational."

 

Here’s how we defined each of these stages:

Early

AI use is still taking shape at our company. It is mostly experimental, limited to a small number of tasks or use cases, and outcomes are not yet consistent.

 

Emerging

AI is being used in real workflows at our company and is delivering value, but usage, processes, and outcomes are still evolving.

 

Established

AI is used reliably in repeatable workflows where it delivers consistent value. Teams know where it fits, how it should be used, and what outcomes to expect.

 

Transformational

AI is a foundational part of how the company operates and is materially reshaping workflows, decisions, and business outcomes.

 

In some summaries below, "advanced" AI usage or adoption refers to respondents who mapped their team's AI maturity level as "established" or "transformational."

Most marketing teams are using AI in some way, whether in the emerging, established, or transformational stage of adoption. However, only 10% of the marketers whose teams do use it say they are at the transformational level. There’s room to grow, and many marketing teams are widening their perspective on what AI can do for them.

Though 10% seems small, marketing is the #1 GTM function for advanced AI adoption — with maturity stages far ahead of service and sales professionals. When comparing marketing results to that of 4,000 global sales and service professionals surveyed concurrently, 42% of marketers reported advanced AI use (transformational and established) compared to 23% of service, and 27% of sales professionals.

Marketing is the #1 GTM team for advanced AI adoption.

Marketing teams are also more likely than sales or service teams to say AI is making revenue targets easier to hit. In fact, marketing leads every major AI metric, including: highest advanced AI use, highest active agent use, highest time savings, highest budget growth, strongest reported AI impact on company revenue.

·     Key Findings

How is AI actually changing marketing right now?

1. There’s still room to grow AI acumen

98% of marketing teams are using AI in some way, but only 10% have reached a transformational level.

2. AI helps with speed to market

Speed and agility is the #1 area where AI has improved performance.

3. Teams are employing AI agents

86% of marketing departments now use AI agents, and 76% of those say agent usage increased in the past 6 months.

4. Marketers feel threatened by AI, but it’s linked with career growth

53% of marketers are concerned AI could automate their role. But 1 in 5 transformational adopters credit AI for career trajectory gains.

5. AI skills are expected, but not required

35% of marketers say informal AI expectations already factor into hiring, performance reviews, and compensation.

6. Companies are increasing bets on marketing AI

67% of marketers say their departments have increased AI investments in the past 6-12 months.

Opportunity

AI is working, but are you working it?

AI is helping marketing teams hit their goals, but where it supports most depends heavily on role and level of organization-wide AI adoption. Smaller companies lean on AI for individual output, but enterprise teams use it for communication and strategic impact. Early adopters are able to move faster, but advanced adopters are able to move up in their careers.

Now that AI has moved past the experimental stage, the biggest barriers holding marketing teams back from advancement are related to trust, security, and compliance concerns. This holds steady from 2025, when data privacy concerns were the biggest barrier to adopting new AI tools.

What can AI do for you?

27%

of marketers report speed and agility as AI's #1 performance gain

22%

who are transformational adopters credit AI for career trajectory gains — vs. 5% at early stage

For transformational AI adopters, team communication depth is almost 2x higher than all respondents. Individual contributors see gains in speed, volume, and productivity, while directors report improvements in strategic areas like business impact and team motivation.

“In just a few months, I went from barely using AI to building a personal brand strategy that drove over 3 million impressions on LinkedIn, landing paid partnerships, and consulting with other founders. And, I did it with the help of ChatGPT. What started as a tool to help me brainstorm quickly became a career accelerator. It changed how I work, how I show up, and how I earn.”

Valerie Chapman, Co-founder and CMO of INFRM

AI maturity and goal attainment move together

The further along a company is in its AI journey, the more likely it is to be hitting its marketing targets, and by a much wider margin. 96% of transformational adopters are at or above marketing qualified lead (MQL) targets, compared to 74% at the early stage. Nearly half of transformational adopters (44%) say AI made customer acquisition cost (CAC) goals much easier to hit, versus just 12% at early stage.

There’s a pattern here, but companies further along in their AI maturity may simply have more budget, headcount, and room to experiment — the kind of resources that make it easier to hit targets with or without AI.

The barriers holding AI adoption back

53% of respondents are at least moderately concerned that AI could automate their role, and 40% report that job security concerns have led them to use AI somewhat more. Looking by level of seniority, 48% of manager-level marketers and below use AI somewhat more due to concerns about job security, versus 57% of directors and above.

·     Strategy

Your AI strategy is only as strong as your intelligence layer

Most respondents we've polled across GTM say their companies want to be at an "established" AI maturity level by 2027. But notably, 1 in 5 marketers say their companies are aiming for transformational adoption.

Across regions, companies in Latin America are more likely to anticipate reaching a transformational level of AI, while those in Europe are most likely to have a goal of an established AI strategy.

What’s driving adoption?

60% of respondents say their organizations expect some level of AI proficiency among their employees, but only 15% say meeting a specific AI skill level is a formal requirement.

Even if AI proficiency isn't required, marketers still say these skills are important for role trajectory.

Companies pursuing transformational AI should establish more documented expectations for AI proficiency, provide training, and benchmark performance.

AI is leading to marketing team reorgs

74% of respondents believe they are proficient or fluent at using AI.

Marketing leaders report higher levels of personal AI adoption at an “established” level than managers or below. And they may be more effective in using AI, too.

Recent research found that senior-level professionals are more skilled in using AI because they push back on AI responses, whereas those who are more junior accept AI responses and “let AI think for them,” which erodes their confidence in its outputs. AI isn't making us dumber, but those who engage with it rather than trusting it blindly feel more confident in their AI-assisted work.

Most marketers say their role has changed because of AI, and only 7% say it hasn't changed at all. Even titles are changing, as companies hire or redeploy employees to certain roles.

AI is transforming marketing budgets and hiring decisions

More and more teams are experimenting with AI, and the majority are meaningfully investing in it.

As marketers work against “AI slop,” governance and data become more important, and they're top of mind for many teams, especially mid-market and enterprise teams where there are more cooks in the kitchen.

Companies are documenting AI policies and guidelines, and consistently updating them as new information comes in. In 2025, 18% of organizations had no stated policy on AI usage. In 2026, only 8% either have no AI policies at all or plan to create them. And at most companies, AI has some access to business context, but there are important gaps.

For 1 in 4 teams, data access is excellent — it's accurate, complete, reliable and easy to access. For most teams (53%), it's good. It's mostly reliable, with occasional gaps. And for 1 in 5 teams, data is either fair, with noticeable gaps, inconsistencies, or access issues, or poor, regularly hindering AI use.

https://tinyurl.com/422xfm4a

Why People Use Generative AI Tools in 2026

 Which types of tasks are Americans using generative AI tools for? How does AI use vary by age and income?

To find out, EMARKETER conducted a survey in May 2026 among 1,570 consumers in the United States aged 15-80 who use generative AI tools.

Among respondents who use generative AI tools at least weekly, some 51% say they use them for "asking" (to look for information), 34% for "doing" (for help with personal tasks), 30% for "playing" (for fun), and 26% for "working" (for work or school tasks).

Gen Z and millennial respondents are more likely to use AI at least weekly compared with older generations, and are also more likely to use AI to meet a wider range of different needs.

Higher income respondents (household income over $200,000) are twice as likely to use AI tools for working compared with lower income respondents (household income under $49,999).

About the research: The report was based on data from a survey conducted in May 2026 among 1,570 consumers in the United States aged 15-80.

https://tinyurl.com/yc628e34

IT Services Marketing: Channel and Budget Trends

 Which marketing channels are most effective for IT services companies? Which channels are most disappointing? Which channels do marketers plan to increase their investment in?

To find out, researchers at Techreviewer surveyed 62 marketers from across the globe who work for IT services firms.

Respondents say the most effective marketing channels for their IT services business are content marketing/SEO, referrals, and LinkedIn outreach.

Respondents say the top channel that has not lived up to their expectations is social media marketing.

Respondents say the top channels their company plans to invest more marketing budget in are content marketing/SEO, LinkedIn outreach, and PPC advertising.

About the research: The report was based on data from a survey of 62 marketers from across the globe who work for IT services firms.

https://tinyurl.com/bddbnsem

How AI Will Affect Delivering Relevant Search Results

 Most professionals who work in roles focused on online search say artificial intelligence will be extremely or very important to delivering relevant results in the future, according to recent research from Lucidworks.

The report was based on data from a survey of 100 search practitioners (people whose jobs include some responsibility for online search, such as engineers, data scientists, and digital commerce experts).

Some 52% of search practitioners say they believe AI will be extremely important in the future for delivering relevant search results, and 36% say they believe it will be very important.

Some 40% of search practitioners say delivering relevant search results will require more effort in the future, 32% say it will require less effort, and 28% say it will require the same amount of effort.

Some 36% of search practitioners cite collecting quality signal data as the most important factor for delivering relevant search results, 34% cite data analysis, and 30% cite taking the correct actions with data.

About the research: The report was based on data from a survey of 100 search practitioners (people whose jobs include some responsibility for online search, such as engineers, data scientists, and digital commerce experts).

https://cutt.ly/O6WWI8t

Wither Facebook? The Social Platforms Used Most in 2023

 Facebook is by far the social platform Americans say they use most often, but its popularity is waning and use varies widely among different age groups, according to recent research from Edison Research.

The Infinite Dial 2023 report was based on data from a survey conducted in January 2023 among 1,500 people age 12 and older in the United States. The researchers weighted the data to national population figures.

Some 46% of social media users say Facebook is the platform they use most often, 18% say Instagram, 14% TikTok, 7% Twitter, 6% Snap, and 3% Pinterest. A fraction (6%) cite other social platforms.

Fully 74% of social media users age 55+ say Facebook is the platform they use most often, compared with 55% of those age 35-54 and just 20% of those age 12-34.

Among social media users age 12-34, Facebook declined 14 percentage points between 2022 and 2023 in the share who say it is the platform they use most often.

Among social media users age 35-54, Facebook declined six percentage points between 2022 and 2023 in the share who say it is the platform they use most often.

Among social media users age 55+, Facebook declined three percentage points between 2022 and 2023 in the share who say it is the platform they use most often.

About the research: The Infinite Dial 2023 report was based on data from a survey conducted in January 2023 among 1,500 people age 12 and older in the United States.

https://cutt.ly/w4H87gc

The Pros and Cons of Printed Marketing Materials

 Many marketers say they value that printed marketing materials such as brochures enable them to provide a physical copy of information, but they also say they worry that people simply throw those materials away, according to recent research from RRD and Finn Partners.

The report was based on data from a survey conducted in November 2022 among 300 marketing professionals in the United States who have insight into the decision-making processes at their organizations.

When asked what benefits print marketing has over digital marketing, respondents cite that it enables them to provide a physical copy of information (41% say is a benefit), that it provides an offline channel for consideration (39%), and that it provides a tactile, interactive, and memorable experience (34%).

When asked what challenges print marketing has compared with digital marketing, respondents cite the fear that people just throw printed materials away (47% cite as a challenge), that they can't track response rates effectively (38%), and that printed materials become out of date too quickly (34%).

Some 63% of marketers surveyed say digital marketing generally has a higher ROI than print marketing, 14% say print has a higher ROI, 20% say the ROI is equal, and 3% say they don't know because they don't use print marketing.

About the research: The report was based on data from a survey conducted in November 2022 among 300 marketing professionals in the United States who have insight into the decision-making processes at their organizations.

https://cutt.ly/h9NWtFE

What drives a company’s success? Highlights of survey findings

by Paul Leinwand and Cesare Mainardi

Survey snapshot

A Strategy& survey shows that companies find it harder to understand their own strengths than to understand their customers. By knowing themselves well and leveraging their distinctive strengths to build a clear identity, companies can outperform their peers. But many companies aren’t basing their strategies on this insight, the study finds. In fact, companies have widely divergent views on how to develop strategy, despite evidence that a capabilities-driven approach delivers the best returns.

We find that a capabilities-driven approach to value creation leads to higher returns, on average, than other ways of doing strategy. Capabilities-driven companies owe their success to having a truly distinctive way of providing value, a powerful set of capabilities, and coherence between their strategy and their capabilities. By contrast, companies that compete on the basis of economies of scale, lucrative assets, or diversification fare less well.

We also see that companies with a clear identity — standing for something unique and consistent over time — tend to perform better than others. But how do they develop that identity? Again, a capabilities-driven approach is the answer.

Finally, the survey shows why many companies find pursuing this kind of success so hard. Their approach to strategy gets in the way: They do strategy at the margins — with a short-term perspective and too many initiatives — instead of pursuing a strategy that promotes long-term success. Contrary to common belief, most companies’ problem with strategy is not insufficient understanding of the market, but rather insufficient knowledge of and reliance on their own distinctive strengths.

Companies that embrace the challenge of building and leveraging this self-knowledge are on their way to creating greater value.

“Many companies focus too much on the outside when developing their strategy, and don’t combine that market-back perspective with a clear view of what their organization is great at doing. In this survey, as in all the research we’ve done on the topic of value creation, we see that essential advantage lies within. A few differentiating capabilities drive a company’s identity and success.”

—Cesare Mainardi, chief executive officer, Strategy&

The 10 companies with the clearest identity*

• Apple
• BMW
• Caterpillar
• Coca-Cola
• Honda
• LVMH
• Royal Dutch Shell
• Toyota
• Volkswagen
• Walmart

* Identified by survey participants from a list containing the 15 largest public companies (by market capitalization) across regions in each of seven industries.

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Key findings of the survey

Our findings provide critical insights into what drives success, the importance of a clear identity, and the top issues in strategic development.

What drives success?
The survey found that there is no dominant strategy or school of strategy. We asked survey participants to rate the importance of seven drivers of success, and their responses were surprisingly mixed. Economies of scale were rated as the most important driver of success, followed closely by powerful capabilities and lucrative assets.

For the best-performing companies, success — measured in terms of three-year growth of total shareholder return (TSR) — is attributable to what we call a capabilities-driven approach to strategy. These companies’ drivers of success most often include three distinct elements: a truly distinctive way of providing value, powerful capabilities, and coherence between the two.

Companies that owe their success to more asset-driven factors (economies of scale, lucrative assets, or diversification) have measurably lower performance.

Does identity matter?
Companies considered to have a clear identity — standing for something unique and consistent over time — have superior three-year TSR growth compared with companies that lack a clear identity.

In addition to promoting overall success, the three elements of a capabilities-driven strategy also drive a company’s strong identity, according to respondents.

Building a strong identity is very hard to do. The most challenging aspect is defining the identity and determining precisely how the company is going to add value for its customers.

What’s wrong with strategy development?
We asked respondents to rank the most problematic issues companies face in developing strategy. “Having too many strategic initiatives” was ranked as the biggest problem by more respondents (29 percent) than any other issue.

That was closely followed by “focusing too much on short-term performance improvement and too little on what will create long-term success” (27 percent of respondents).

Contrary to common belief, insufficient market focus is not the biggest problem — only 7 percent of respondents consider “ignoring external market forces” to be the most problematic issue.

Overall, only about one out of three respondents (36 percent) indicated that the top leaders of their companies were effective at both strategy development and execution, although both dimensions strongly correlate with company performance.

Key finding: Companies have widely divergent views about how to chase success

Exhibit 1: The world’s largest companies have divergent views on what drives success

• We asked survey participants to identify the most important drivers of success for the three companies they know best among the 15 largest in their industry. We found that no approach is clearly dominant.
• Pursuing economies of scale was perceived to be the most important success driver (score of 2.0), followed by powerful capabilities (1.8) and lucrative assets (1.6).

“The application of strategy to the business context is new — just about 50 years old. But in those 50 years we’ve seen countless theories, frameworks, and books being developed. The challenge now is that many companies pursue multiple theories of value creation at the same time.”

—Paul Leinwand, partner, Strategy&

Survey respondents’ perceptions of Apple and Microsoft help to illustrate the differences in how companies approach strategy. Respondents draw a very clear — and very distinct — picture of each company’s strategy.

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Exhibit 2: Comparing drivers of success for Apple and Microsoft

• Apple’s success is perceived to be primarily based on its distinctive way of providing value and the coherence between its strategy and its capabilities.
• Microsoft’s success is perceived to be primarily based on its scale and lucrative assets.

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Exhibit 3: Apple and Microsoft are perceived to have different strategic approaches

• Apple is seen as having a much more focused approach to strategy. Respondents regard it as using a clear value proposition to target a specific customer segment and focusing on a few capabilities in which it achieves excellence.
• Microsoft, on the other hand, is seen as following a more balanced approach. Respondents regard it as tailoring value propositions to various customer segments and being good across many capabilities rather than focusing on excellence in a few.

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Key finding: Companies competing with a capabilities-driven approach are more successful

Exhibit 4: Companies’ performance depends on their sources of success

• Although each of the seven success drivers listed in Exhibit 1 is used by a significant percentage of companies, they have very different impacts on companies’ success.
• The more a company’s success is perceived to be capabilities-driven — based on a clear way to play, powerful capabilities, and coherence — the more successful the company tends to be (as measured by TSR growth over three years). Companies that are seen as most consistently following such a capabilities-driven approach include Apple, Caterpillar, Honda, PetroChina, SAP, Standard Chartered, Toyota, and Volkswagen.
• Companies that are seen as competing on the basis of assets, scale, and, diversification have significantly lower TSR growth, on average, than companies that follow a capabilities-driven approach.

“Our findings are very much in line with our beliefs about capabilities. Successful companies choose a differentiating way of creating value for customers, build a bespoke system of capabilities that supports this way to play, and focus their activities on those areas that benefit from their unique strengths.”

—Cesare Mainardi, chief executive officer, Strategy&

“We have ample evidence that differentiation through capabilities leads to sustainable advantage. In fact, given the competitive intensity in today’s business environment, companies need more than just one or two great products to win in the long term — differentiation through capabilities is quickly becoming the only path to sustainable value creation in most industries. Coherent companies, in every industry we’ve studied, outperform their less coherent competitors.”

—Paul Leinwand, partner, Strategy&

Key finding: Companies with clear identities enjoy stronger performance

Exhibit 5: Companies with clear identities enjoy stronger performance

• We asked survey participants to tell us how clear an identity the various companies in their industry have — that is, how clearly those companies are perceived to stand for something unique and consistent over time.
• Their responses helped to demonstrate that a clear identity correlates with performance — the stronger the identity, the higher the company’s three-year TSR growth. The effect is significant: Companies whose identity is perceived to be clearer than the average have a three-year TSR growth that is more than 3 percentage points higher than that of their peers.

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Exhibit 6: The clarity of a company’s identity depends on its sources of success

• Companies with a clear identity compete based on the same three capabilities-related factors that drive success in general: a truly distinctive way of providing value, powerful capabilities, and coherence.
• Companies that base their success on assets, scale, and diversification are perceived to have a weaker identity.

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Key finding: Strategists’ biggest problems are having too many disconnected initiatives and not focusing on what will create long-term success

Exhibit 7: Too many initiatives and a short-term focus are the biggest issues for strategy development

• Two issues emerged as the most problematic when we asked survey respondents to rate the significance of strategic issues: having too many strategic initiatives that are disconnected and focusing too much on short-term performance. In other words, companies aren’t addressing the fundamental questions of strategy that will allow them to create long-term success.
• Contrary to common belief, insufficient market focus does not appear to be the problem — only 7 percent of respondents consider “ignoring external market forces” to be the most significant issue.
• Overall, only about one third of respondents (36 percent) indicated that their leaders were effective at both answering the fundamental questions about strategy and keeping their company on track in execution.

“Companies rarely fail simply because they don’t understand the market, but many struggle because they don’t understand and leverage what is great about themselves.”

—Paul Leinwand, partner, Strategy&

“Most companies do strategy at the margins — they look forward from their current messy and incoherent states and pursue the same trends as anyone else in the industry. This set of incremental steps ultimately leads nowhere, because many companies are all chasing after the same small set of opportunities. What companies need to do is real strategy — they need to think bigger and more long-term, working toward a differentiated position that fits their capabilities.”

—Cesare Mainardi, chief executive officer, Strategy&

About the survey

Strategy& developed this survey to better understand what drives the success of the world’s largest companies. The survey assessed the relationship between companies’ approach to value creation and their performance, and studied the role that a company’s identity plays in its success.

We conducted a Web-based survey between February and August 2013 and invited readers of HBR.org and recipients of strategy+business enews and Strategy& Foresight to participate; 720 executives (including 192 at the C-suite level) completed the survey. Participants were asked to select up to three public companies within their industry (from a list of the 15 largest in each of seven industries) and comment on what drives success for those companies as well as their own company; to identify the main challenges companies face in strategy development; and to assess the role that a strong identity plays in promoting a company’s success.

To determine a company’s score for each of seven predefined success drivers, we allocated three points to the driver selected as most important, two points to the second most important, and one point to the third most important. We then normalized the scores so that the sum for the seven drivers equals 10. To enable a comparison across companies, scores for each driver were averaged over all companies.

Based on the survey responses and the company’s performance (as measured by three-year TSR growth from January 2010 to January 2013), we established a link between companies’ success drivers and their actual success.

Learn more about Strategy&’s full body of work on how companies build their essential advantage through capabilities-driven strategy at strategyand.pwc.com/CDS.