Key stat: Creative and content production tops the list of martech areas marketers expect AI to disrupt most, cited by 27% of UK and North America respondents, according to a November 2025 survey from StackAdapt and Ascend2.

Beyond the chart:

• Budgets are already shifting. Some 83% of marketing leaders say they would reduce agency spending if they could fully automate content creation, according to Typeface's Signal Report, and 73% of teams that have already adopted AI agents have cut their content creation spend on agencies.
• The flip side is a quality problem already in motion. Nearly 40% of digital video ads will be AI-generated this year, and 57% of marketing agency leaders already cite AI content oversaturation as a top concern, according to IAB data.

Use this chart: Drop this in your next AI strategy presentation to frame where disruption is headed. Show your leadership team which parts of the martech stack face the most pressure, and use the breakdown to benchmark your brand's current AI investments against where marketers expect the biggest shifts.

Related reports:

• Ad Agency Trends 2026 (EMARKETER subscription required)
• Digital Advertising Trends to Watch in 2026 (EMARKETER subscription required)

Methodology: Data is from the December 2025 StackAdapt report titled "The State of Programmatic Advertising 2026." 484 senior marketing professionals from the US, Canada, and the UK were surveyed during October 24-November 12, 2025 by Ascend2. Respondents included brand-side marketers (64%) and agency leaders (36%), all at manager level or above, representing organizations with annual marketing budgets of $5 million USD or more.

We prepared this article with the assistance of generative AI tools and stand behind its accuracy, quality, and originality.