Generative AI remains the buzziest tech word in 2025, but not everyone’s buying it.
According to a new report, 27% of Chief Marketing Officers are limiting or completely avoiding the use of generative AI on their teams.
Granted, that’s another way of saying that most of them have done so: The same survey found that 77% of CMOs had adopted genAI for at least some creative development tasks. However, in today’s ChatGPT-saturated environment, it’s interesting to note that more than a quarter of CMOs aren’t diving into the technology that everyone’s talking about.
Survey Says: Most CMOs ‘Face Challenges’ Executing Marketing Campaigns
By any definition, the generative AI boom is now several years old, and well-established. Plenty of companies have latched onto it as an impetus for layoffs, from companies as diverse as TikTok and Duolingo. So why are there so many holdouts?
Gartner is behind the new survey, which covered insights from 418 marketing leaders between July and September 2024.
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According to the analysis, the 27% of CMOs who have largely avoided generative AI use are a reflection of the variety of responses to genAI’s cultural rise. Some companies adopted it rapidly, while others avoided the risks of early investment in an unproven resource.
Specifically, the 27% stat refers to those who “report that their marketing organization has limited or no GenAI adoption in marketing campaigns,” so it does still include some AI use. And let’s not lose sight of the fact that most CMOs have invested in the technology, with a largely positive feedback from those who have tried genAI:
“Although CMOs have concerns regarding return on investment, many organizations are experiencing benefits from GenAI adoption: Nearly half (47%) report a large benefit from adopting GenAI for evaluation and reporting in their campaigns.” – the survey
CMOs Aren’t Satisfied With Their Campaigns
AI aside, the survey reveals plenty of other challenges in the CMO expanded universe. For one thing, an impressively high 87% of CMOs report they “experienced campaign performance issues in the last 12 months,” with 45% of CMOs saying they “sometimes, often, or always had occasion to terminate campaigns early in the last year due to poor performance.”
That’s despite an average of 44.5% of the total marketing budget being invested towards campaigns and media plans. Well, perhaps it’s due in part to that fact, since being responsible for half of the marketing budget tends to add a lot of pressure.
In fact, some CMOs pointed the finger at other teams when trying to name the biggest roadblocks to their work:
“Thirty-one percent of marketing leaders say that finance is the function that most impedes successful execution of marketing campaigns, followed by executive leadership (26%) and sales (26%).” – the survey
AI is ultimately just one factor in a tough job, it seems.
What Challenges Does GenAI Pose?
There are several reasons why CMOs might not want to dabble in generative AI when crafting public-facing campaigns, but let’s be honest: The biggest reason is probably the risk of falling on their faces and damaging their company’s reputation.
After all, we’ve seen plenty of cases of AI-related advertisements failing to deliver on their own promises. Most recently, a Super Bowl Google ad contained a factually incorrect statistic, but we’ve also seen a movie trailer that included a made-up critic’s quote that turned out to be fabricated by genAI. Needless to say, no CMO wants to face an entire news cycle about how bad their campaign was.
GenAI’s other PR troubles include my personal problem with the technology, the environmental impact of its energy-sucking models, as well as the copyright violations that even big proponents of the technology claim are inevitable.
