The news: While advertisers are turning to AI to streamline the campaign creation process, the majority are not feeling the technology’s impact, per a FreeWheel survey of marketers and agencies cited in Comcast’s 2026 Advertising Report.

• Advertisers are using AI to support various creative tasks: 41% are using it to generate creative ideas, 35% to produce multiple versions of a concept, 21% for creating ads through third-party vendors, and 20% to fully produce ads.
• Beyond creative development, advertisers are using or planning to use AI to support campaign processes like identifying or segmenting audiences (82%), analyzing audience behavior (82%), and automating data collection and integration (80%).
• But despite broad adoption, 61% of respondents have not seen meaningful results from AI yet, and only 30% trust AI to do advertising-related tasks—suggesting lacking evidence of ROI and persistent technical barriers.

Behind the gap: A combination of technical and organizational factors are preventing advertisers using AI from achieving meaningful results.

• Organizational readiness to operationalize AI is mixed. 31.2% of marketers are testing AI in pilots, while only 29.7% are actively using it in production, per an EMARKETER and Zeta Global survey.
• Concerns about accuracy and compliance cause issues; 60% of ad industry professionals have hesitations on accuracy and transparency, while 58% worry about compliance and governance, per the Interactive Advertising Bureau.
• A lack of widespread organizational AI competencies is leading to underwhelming results. Fifty-four percent do not have a clear image of AI’s role, per IAB, while 39% of small-business marketers lack the skills or knowledge to adopt AI and 35% face difficulties integrating AI into existing systems, according to WARC and Intuit Mailchimp.
• ROI is difficult to prove because of limited performance insights for AI tools. Forty-eight percent of US ad industry professionals cited challenges proving AI’s benefits to stakeholders as a barrier to AI adoption, leading to hesitancy in fully embracing AI-driven advertising.

Recommendations for marketers: Maximizing the benefits of AI and avoiding the pitfalls marketers may face during adoption requires a strategic, phased approach addressing both technical and organizational hurdles.

• Beginning with focused experimentation through small-scale projects targeting specific inefficiencies or high-volume, time-consuming tasks will help teams build confidence and expertise before shifting to consumer-facing applications.
• Organizations should invest in team education and upskilling. A lack of knowledge can be combatted through targeted training on AI capabilities and prompt engineering to help employees gain proficiency.
• Consumer sentiment remains split; marketers should combat this by communicating transparent AI policies.
• Proving ROI requires modern KPIs for a constantly evolving tool. Traditional metrics are not enough; options such as operational efficiency, time saved, improved performance metrics, and cost reduction will provide a clearer picture of AI’s impact.