AI is gaining traction in every industry and advertising is no different.
So, I surveyed 247 advertisers to ask about their AI usage – everything from the tools they use to their 2025 investment plans.
They also shared the key challenges keeping them from investing in it more.
Ready to dive in? Let's go.
How Advertising Professionals Use AI
Adoption
When it comes to AI adoption, it’s pretty recent for most advertisers I surveyed, with 70% of respondents saying they’ve only been using AI tools for advertising in the last 12 months.
This explains why 55% of respondents report that their organization’s AI adoption level is intermediate, meaning they regularly use it for specific tasks while 22% report only beginning to experiment with basic AI applications.
How is it going so far? 67% of respondents say using AI has had a positive impact on the effectiveness of their advertising strategy. In addition, 22% report that AI implementation has led to a significant advantage against competitors.
Most respondents (36%) see AI as assistive technology in which humans lead. Roughly another third (32%) of respondents believe in an equal, co-creation effort between advertisers and AI.
There’s another 19% who say their creative teams let AI lead with human oversight.
Given these data points, why isn’t adoption higher? Here are the top three reasons respondents cite for not adopting AI further:
- Data quality or accessibility issues
- Integration with existing systems
- Budget constraints
The survey suggests that the higher the org’s AI adoption level, the more likely they are to struggle with integrating it with their current systems.
That’s because when you’re just starting out, you’re typically using simple software, like AI chatbots, which don’t require complex system integration. But as you start to incorporate AI into your workflows and operations, integration becomes necessary and can be a bottleneck.
