Ascend2’s latest report "the Evolution of AI in Marketing 2025" talks about how AI has changed marketing and how marketers think about incorporating AI in their plans and strategies. Ascend2 surveyed 312 marketing leaders and found that 25% of the marketers say that AI was a success to them as it helped them achieve marketing objectives. 60% said that using AI to achieve their marketing objectives was somewhat successful while 14% said that using AI for marketing turned out unsuccessful.
The survey also asked marketers how their organization has incorporated AI into its marketing strategy, with 39% integrating AI in selected areas while 26% are still exploring AI and haven't implemented it yet. 17% of the marketing organizations said that they have extensively integrated AI across multiple channels, while 13% reported having no plans of using AI in marketing. The most effective AI-driven marketing tactics include content creation and enhancement (37%), email marketing optimization (36%), social media management and targeting (35%) and personalization of content (33%).
The biggest challenges most marketers and their teams are facing in adopting AI for marketing are high costs of AI tools (38%), data privacy and compliance concerns (37%), integration with existing systems (37%) and lack of internal expertise (35%). The report also talked about some AI tools marketing organizations use the most, with 31% using AI-driven content creation tools. Organisations are using marketing automation platforms with AI features, chatbots and conversational AI platforms, ad targeting and optimization tools (29% each). Predictive analytics tools (28%) and social listening tools with AI (24%) are also being used by organisations for marketing.
When marketers were asked how much they trust AI-driven insights for driving critical marketing decisions, 35% said they somewhat trust AI but mostly rely on human judgement while 33% said they trust AI insights but validate them with human reviews. 13% reported fully trusting AI insights while 11% said that they don't trust AI-driven insights. Loss of creativity and human touch (54%) and over-reliance on AI (42%) are the primary concerns about using AI in marketing. 40% are also concerned with ethical issues with data usage and 35% worry about lack of transparency in how AI makes decisions.
Talking about the future impact of AI in marketing, 33% of the marketers said that AI will make marketing more efficient and personalized, and the same amount of people said that AI is going to be a helpful tool but it will not bring any fundamental change to marketing. 14% said that AI is going to create more challenges than advantages in marketing while 11% believe that AI is going to become oversaturated and lose its effectiveness. 48% somewhat agreed that businesses who will fail to adopt AI in their marketing strategy for the next five years will be at a competitive disadvantage while 28% strongly agreed and 7% strongly disagreed.
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The survey also asked marketers how their organization has incorporated AI into its marketing strategy, with 39% integrating AI in selected areas while 26% are still exploring AI and haven't implemented it yet. 17% of the marketing organizations said that they have extensively integrated AI across multiple channels, while 13% reported having no plans of using AI in marketing. The most effective AI-driven marketing tactics include content creation and enhancement (37%), email marketing optimization (36%), social media management and targeting (35%) and personalization of content (33%).
The biggest challenges most marketers and their teams are facing in adopting AI for marketing are high costs of AI tools (38%), data privacy and compliance concerns (37%), integration with existing systems (37%) and lack of internal expertise (35%). The report also talked about some AI tools marketing organizations use the most, with 31% using AI-driven content creation tools. Organisations are using marketing automation platforms with AI features, chatbots and conversational AI platforms, ad targeting and optimization tools (29% each). Predictive analytics tools (28%) and social listening tools with AI (24%) are also being used by organisations for marketing.
When marketers were asked how much they trust AI-driven insights for driving critical marketing decisions, 35% said they somewhat trust AI but mostly rely on human judgement while 33% said they trust AI insights but validate them with human reviews. 13% reported fully trusting AI insights while 11% said that they don't trust AI-driven insights. Loss of creativity and human touch (54%) and over-reliance on AI (42%) are the primary concerns about using AI in marketing. 40% are also concerned with ethical issues with data usage and 35% worry about lack of transparency in how AI makes decisions.
Talking about the future impact of AI in marketing, 33% of the marketers said that AI will make marketing more efficient and personalized, and the same amount of people said that AI is going to be a helpful tool but it will not bring any fundamental change to marketing. 14% said that AI is going to create more challenges than advantages in marketing while 11% believe that AI is going to become oversaturated and lose its effectiveness. 48% somewhat agreed that businesses who will fail to adopt AI in their marketing strategy for the next five years will be at a competitive disadvantage while 28% strongly agreed and 7% strongly disagreed.
Read next:
• Can You Trust AI for Medical Advice? New Study Uncovers the Risky Truth
• AI’s Growing Influence on Workplaces Sparks Concerns Over Declining Critical Thinking
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