Artificial intelligence is shifting from buzzword to backbone in modern marketing. But while adoption is growing, progress is uneven and often held back by budget constraints, compliance concerns, and operational inertia.
As reported by Campaign, CMOs across industries are integrating AI into daily workflows, team structures, and external partnerships. But the transformation is slow and complex, shaped by internal priorities, risk tolerance, and available resources.
Here’s a deeper look at how senior marketers are reshaping their departments in the age of AI.
1. AI Momentum Is Building, but Adoption Varies by Industry
Not all companies can move at the same speed. Sectors like finance and healthcare face heavy regulations, which limit how quickly AI can be deployed.
Lisa Ortner-Ghouze, global head of marketing at Standard Chartered Bank, pointed to risk and governance committees as key barriers: “They’re worried about what kind of information we would be feeding an AI engine that could cause possible risk exposures for us as an organization.”
By contrast, companies like Instacart and Canva, less burdened by compliance rules, have been quicker to test and refine their AI strategies. Instacart’s CMO, Laura Jones, noted their biggest gains have come from automating operational tasks. The company now uses AI to streamline video creation and reduce time spent on repetitive work.
Still, experimentation has had its hiccups. Early tests with generative image tools produced “turkeys with three legs,” Jones said, prompting a shift toward more balanced use cases that blend automation with human oversight.
2. Efficiency Isn’t Enough – CMOs Want Business Impact
While AI is clearly helping teams save time, some CMOs remain skeptical about its bottom-line value. Jones noted that video automation saved her team 160 hours per project. But for others, that time savings hasn’t translated to major financial impact.
Dhiren Amin, chief customer officer at Income Insurance, said the returns on creative content generation were relatively modest. The company is now focusing on customer experience applications instead, like AI-powered chat support and predictive analytics for upselling insurance products, because those tactics have a clearer link to revenue.
The message is clear: AI isn’t only a creative tool. It’s a business tool. And CMOs want to see proof of ROI.
3. Flat Budgets Are Pushing Smarter Use of Existing Tools
Average marketing budgets are now down to 7.7% of company revenue, according to Campaign. In this environment, most CMOs aren’t rushing to buy new AI platforms. Instead, they’re leaning on what they already have; using corporate-wide licenses, tapping into AI tools bundled into martech platforms, and limiting AI-specific budget allocations.
At Canva, for instance, only 3–5% of the marketing budget goes toward AI-specific tools or skills. The rest comes from broader IT spend. Emma Robinson, Canva’s head of B2B marketing, emphasized the importance of maximizing shared resources.
This means AI isn’t always a line-item investment. It’s increasingly being folded into the tech stack that already exists.
4. AI Is Reshaping Agency Partnerships
The rise of AI is also shifting how brands work with agencies. Some CMOs are consolidating more work into holding companies like Publicis Groupe and WPP, relying on them for safe AI implementation, especially in regulated industries.
Alexander Craddock, Citi’s global marketing and content lead, said the bank plans to deepen its relationship with Publicis because of their AI capabilities.
But that’s not the whole story. As more internal teams build AI fluency, others are pulling back on external support. According to a Gartner survey of over 400 CMOs across North America and Europe, 22% said generative AI is helping reduce their need for outside creative or strategy help.
Ortner-Ghouze from Standard Chartered noted that while they haven’t cut agency budgets yet, they’re reviewing every opportunity to reallocate spending: “You always try to see if I can save, say, half a million dollars, so I can spend it somewhere else, like on media budgets or experimentation.”
5. Human Talent Still Matters
Despite the automation wave, CMOs aren’t ready to trade human creativity for algorithms.
Nikki Vadera, marketing and digital director at Henkel, warned that while retainer-based agency work is likely to survive the AI shift, project-based partnerships and campaign-specific contracts are at risk. If clients can automate one-off deliverables, they may no longer see value in outsourcing them.
But across the board, executives emphasized that people, not platforms, are still the most valuable asset. “No matter how much AI you have,” Ortner-Ghouze said, “it also comes down to the quality of the people, the humans that you’re interacting with.”
