The 2025 State of Marketing AI Report from Marketing AI Institute is now live featuring insights from nearly 1,900 marketers and business leaders.
You can download the full report from the link in the comments, but here are some of the key findings:
1) Marketers are racing ahead with AI.
This year, 40% of respondents (the highest proportion) say they’re in the Experimentation phase of AI, where they’re actively testing AI tools. Another 26% are in the Integration phase, where they’re embedding AI into their workflows and processes.
2) AI is more important than ever to marketing.
When asked how important AI is to the success of their marketing over the next 12 months, 74% said that it is either “critically important” or “very important” to their marketing in the next year, a jump of 8 percentage points from 2024.
3) Saving time with AI is more important than ever to marketers.
When asked what outcome they’re trying to achieve with AI, marketers are more likely than ever to say they’re trying to save time. This year, 82% said that reducing the time they spend on repetitive, data-driven tasks was the primary outcome they’re trying to achieve with AI.
4) ChatGPT is still the undisputed leader of AI tools.
When asked if they have a favorite AI tool, respondents overwhelmingly said ChatGPT (or OpenAI’s models) was their favorite (57% of responses). Respondents were also asked if their organization provided a license to ChatGPT Team or Enterprise, Microsoft Copilot, or Google Gemini. ChatGPT was also a leader here: Respondents overwhelmingly said that their company provided them with a ChatGPT license (61%).
5) Lack of training and the pace of change are enormous barriers to AI adoption.
Marketers once again cite a lack of education and training as the top barrier they face to AI adoption, as has been the case every year we’ve published this report. This year, 62% said this was a top barrier to AI adoption in their marketing, followed by a lack of awareness or understanding within their organization (52%).
6) Marketers are more pessimistic than ever about AI’s impact on marketing jobs.
This year, 53% of respondents say they believe more marketing jobs will be eliminated by AI than will be created by AI. This is the highest number on record since we started asking the question in 2023. In that year, only 40% of marketers said they believed more jobs would be eliminated than created, which means pessimism has increased by 13 points in just two years.
7) Organizations are missing the strategies, policies, and councils needed to transform.
Seventy-five percent lack an AI roadmap or strategy for the next 1-2 years (with either 64% saying they don’t have one or 11% not sure they have one). Sixty-three percent don’t have generative AI policies or don’t know if they exist. Sixty percent say the same thing about AI ethics policies. And 67% don’t have an AI council or don’t know if one exists.
Download the full 42-page report below.