Customer experience (CX) is becoming one of the most important drivers of sustainable growth as retention, trust, and loyalty take priority over acquisition alone. In this video, Principal Analyst Kelsey Voss explores why CMOs are investing more heavily in CX—and how organizational alignment, AI, and journey consistency are shaping long-term customer relationships.

Enterprise leaders gravitate to Anthropic while OpenAI’s focus draws scrutiny.

CMOs are expanding their mandate beyond acquisition to include customer experience (CX) as a structural growth lever. But silos, fragmented data, and rushed AI adoption threaten retention. Alignment now determines whether CX builds loyalty or fuels churn.

Advertisers use AI across creative and targeting, yet 61% report no meaningful gains and only 30% trust it.

On today’s EMARKETER Miniseries—AI-Driven Media Management—we explore the core building blocks of AI innovation, what partnering with Amazon Ads looks like in practice, and advice for leaders or teams who don’t come from technical backgrounds but need to build or use AI systems. EMARKETER Senior Director of Content Jeremy Goldman speaks with Adam Epstein, co-founder and CEO of Gigi. Listen everywhere you find podcasts, and watch on YouTube and Spotify.

Even as consumer attitudes toward AI in advertising remain mixed, agencies are rapidly expanding their use of AI across the marketing lifecycle. But significant resistance remains, especially when AI is used in ad creative. As agencies scale AI adoption, consumer sentiment underscores the need for restraint and intentionality—using AI for work behind-the-scenes, but resisting entire AI creative.

AI is reshaping the ad agency landscape and eliminating the need for entry-level hires, according to a Sunup report that found that 91% of US senior agency leaders expect AI to reduce headcounts and 57% have slowed or paused entry-level hiring.

Mid-market marketers (companies with 10 to 499 employees) have high expectations for artificial intelligence and see AI as a productivity lever for lean teams, according to new data from WARC and MailChimp—but adoption lags behind enthusiasm. AI is still in its early days, leaving a wide gap between the largest companies with capital to invest in proprietary resources and smaller teams with more limited resources.

Adobe announced an expansion of its GenStudio at its Adobe MAX conference today, with updates including key AI innovations and new ad partner integrations. Advertising teams are faced with a landscape that increasingly relies on genAI for key processes once handled by humans.

Coca-Cola and Hershey’s are redefining what innovation looks like for century-old brands. Both companies are building repeatable systems for creativity rather than chasing trends. Coca-Cola created a proprietary AI-driven design system that converts brand rules into machine-readable code, allowing global teams to scale creative consistency instantly. Hershey’s built feedback loops that turn employee empathy and standardized KPIs into actionable insights. Together, they illustrate how legacy CPGs can combine data discipline with creative freedom—using structure to accelerate, not stifle, imagination. Innovation, they argue, isn’t chaos; it’s a system you can build.

Rates of adoption and familiarity with AI are surging—53% of US consumers either regularly use genAI or have experimented with it, per Deloitte’s 2025 Connected Consumer Survey, up from 38% in 2024 and 16% in 2023. Sixty-nine percent of US genAI users engage with AI through social apps, everyday software, and online services. Companies should look beyond customer service chatbots and integrate AI-powered search, product discovery, and personalization tools into brand websites. Boost intelligent tools such as AI personal shopping assistants to increase engagement and time spent, removing the need to navigate elsewhere to find answers or recommendations.

AI adoption is reshaping how brands work with agencies. According to Typeface’s Signal Report, 83% of marketing leaders would cut agency spending if they could automate content creation, and 11% would stop using agencies entirely. As AI tools like Meta’s creative suite expand, agencies face pressure to prove their value beyond content production. While many marketers are reorganizing teams around AI, agencies still play critical roles in strategy, AI governance, and paid media. To stay relevant, agencies must shift from execution to integration partners that help clients navigate AI transformation and maintain strategic oversight.

Artificial intelligence (AI) is reshaping marketing, from how content is created to how advertisers evaluate transparency and trust on digital platforms. Marketers can harness AI to streamline operations, enabling more campaigns more quickly by analyzing large data sets—but do so thoughtfully—avoid using AI for entire ad creation, as consumers still respond negatively to this. Brands must operate with an eye toward maintaining trust and authenticity.

Gen Zers and millennials will lead the charge in shopping with AI agents, but not without guardrails. Nearly half of Gen Zers (47%) and millennials (48%) say they are at least somewhat likely to let AI agents buy things for them, per a YouGov survey. Among likely AI agent adopters, 53% would require approval before letting AI buy anything under $100. For brands, deploying responsible AI agents is key. That means constantly monitoring customer-facing products for hallucinations, keeping humans in the loop to establish accountability and accuracy, and ensuring customers are getting the experiences they want.

Nearly all (97%) of Goldman Sachs’ Gen Z interns use AI in their personal lives, up from 86% in 2023, per the company’s annual intern survey. For a majority of generative AI (genAI) use cases, Gen Zers prefer that real people stay involved, but there are exceptions. More than a third (38%) of respondents said they were good with shopping AI results with no human oversight. For brands, this might mean leaning into Gen Z to train on genAI skills, understand where to get the most value out of AI, and what AI pilots can be cut or built on to improve efficiency.

A new Teads Connected TV paper shows AI has firmly entered the mainstream of video advertising. Sixty percent of marketers now use generative AI to create scripts, voiceovers, and visuals, while others rely on AI tools for audience insights, performance analysis, and real-time optimization. The findings highlight a clear opportunity—marketers that combine AI’s scale and predictive testing with human oversight can build campaigns that are both efficient and distinctive.

Generative AI advertising is drawing consumer backlash after brands including J.Crew, Shein, and Skechers released campaigns marred by obvious AI flaws. Internet sleuths and critics pointed to distorted figures, suspicious likenesses, and poorly rendered images, accusing companies of chasing novelty at the expense of quality. The incidents highlight consumer frustration with brands prioritizing speed and cost savings over authenticity—particularly in fashion and retail, where heritage and trust are core to brand equity. Experts argue AI can accelerate creative production, but only when paired with human direction and craftsmanship. Missteps reveal the risks of treating AI as a replacement.