Familiarity with generative AI is not breeding contempt among marketing executives—far from it. Among the CMOs surveyed by Boston Consulting Group in April and May 2025, 79% are confident that the technology will improve their outcomes, up from 71% two years ago. And while 23% are somewhat worried or anxious about AI, that’s half of the 46% who said the same in 2023.

Marketers are backing up their confidence with cash: 71% plan to invest at least $10 million annually in genAI during the next three years, compared with 57% of last year’s respondents.

Topping the list of investment areas is improving the digital customer experience; 34% of respondents cited it as a key investment priority. The marketing technology stack is a close second, with 33% prioritizing spending there.

At the same time, “you’re seeing companies rethink some of the martech spend in and of itself,” says David Edelman, senior advisor at BCG. After years of adding more and more tools and vendors to their stacks, CMOs are focused on consolidating and simplifying. They’re taking a similar approach to agency spend as well. “Companies are bringing capabilities in-house,” Edelman says. “Having 10 people managing media buys: Those days are gone.”

More Sophisticated AI Use Cases

The reduced spending on agencies is helping to fuel the increased investment in more-advanced genAI applications. For instance, in terms of content creation, the vast majority of survey respondents have already deployed or piloted introductory AI use cases such as language translation (91% of respondents), image creation (80%), animated video generation (80%), and copy creation and variations (79%). Now they’re moving onto the next wave, with 68% having deployed or piloted video enhancements and live-action video generation.

Marketers are also moving toward more sophisticated applications of genAI in predictive analytics. Seventy-two percent have deployed or piloted AI to help customize timing of outreach, 76% for assistance with next-best channel selection, and 78% for sentiment analysis and/or competitor intelligence. In contrast, 87% have already deployed or piloted the use of AI for product recommendations and 85% for personalized offers, relatively elementary applications.

Using AI for Growth, not Just Efficiency

Whereas most of the initial marketing use cases for AI—product recommendations, language translation—focused on efficiency, “now the investment cases are including growth,” Edelman says. “A major finding is how AI has been moving from something that was experimental to something companies have come to depend on for results. That in and of itself was not a surprise, but how quickly companies have come to use AI not just for efficiency but also for growth is.”

To achieve growth, Edelman says CMOs need to think beyond using AI for discrete tasks and incorporate it into their overall workflows. One underexplored area is measurement. Until recently, each marketing channel relied on distinct measurement tools. Now AI tools can integrate measurement data from channels as seemingly diverse as search and connected TV for more consistent, holistic findings that can better inform overall decision-making.

Another example would be to go beyond using AI to target inactive customers and instead “use AI to go through your data to constantly look for people who are at risk of attrition, then create a trigger-based program to go after them preemptively,” he suggests.

To reap these broader, growth-focused benefits, “you have to step back and rethink how your processes operate,” Edelman says. “You have to reimagine, then realign.”

For marketing professionals anxious about losing their jobs to AI, that might mean reimagining themselves as generalists rather than specialists. “We’re seeing the importance of broader skills,” Edelman notes. “Marketing has suffered from overspecialization. In some companies it takes 13 people to get something out the door. That’s way too many, too slow.” While the automation of “pure execution” tasks is all but inevitable, he believes that strategic thinking will remain in demand.

“The companies that are doing this well, their CMOs have a stronger voice at the leadership table,” Edelman says. “They’re not just getting marketing done; they’re opening up more possibilities of what marketing can do. This is an amazing opt for senior marketers to step up and really become more strategic thought leaders and commit to executing their ideas.”