Marketers struggle to turn AI adoption into returns, Bain finds

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Marketers struggle with AI adoption

Highlights

Bain surveyed 1,397 senior executives, finding 95% of marketers have adopted AI tools but only 6% report significant performance impact currently.
Bain identifies 'leader' companies—achieving over 11% annual revenue and 7% market share growth—as twice as likely as laggards to tie AI to double-digit growth or cost savings.
Indeed reports marketing job postings are 25% below pre-pandemic levels and declining faster than almost any other white-collar sector over the past five years.

Survey findings point to execution gap

As reported by Business Insider, citing CMO Insider, Bain surveyed 1,397 senior marketing and finance executives and found that 95% of marketers say their organizations have adopted AI tools, but only 6% report significant performance impact today.

Laura Beaudin, a partner at Bain, says the results show how difficult transformation remains even after companies buy the technology. Bain identifies a small group of "leaders", defined as companies with more than 11% annual revenue growth and more than 7% annual market share growth, and says they are twice as likely as laggards to link AI efforts to double-digit revenue growth or cost savings.

Bain says those stronger performers are centralizing AI strategies, removing functional silos, redesigning workflows and restructuring teams. The firm also says they are directing AI toward customer-focused uses such as applying first-party data to generate insights and personalize marketing.

Workforce changes reshape marketing operations

Separate research released Wednesday by Dentsu Creative points to a similar disconnect, with 70% of 1,950 global senior marketing decision-makers saying they have not yet seen major cost efficiencies from AI. Patricia McDonald, global chief strategy officer at Dentsu Creative, says companies are realizing that software purchases alone do not produce the promised gains.

The pressure to show returns is now pushing marketers beyond experimentation and into organizational change. Beaudin says companies are likely to need fewer narrow specialists and more cross-functional orchestrators, while Wix CMO Omer Shai says the company is building a team of "full-stack marketers" instead of hiring for narrower writing roles.

That shift is unfolding alongside a weaker hiring market. Indeed says marketing job postings are 25% below pre-pandemic levels and are falling faster than almost any other white-collar sector over the past five years, suggesting companies are changing how they staff marketing as AI becomes more embedded in daily operations.

Beaudin says Bain remains optimistic that more companies will begin to see value over the next year as restructurings take hold, although many AI transformations are still a work in progress.

Our earlier article on businesses building generative AI-powered internal software tools explained how companies are increasingly creating custom apps in areas like HR, sales, and finance instead of buying additional vendor features. It highlighted the potential for meaningful savings and faster tailoring, while noting the operational burden and compliance risks that come with maintaining in-house AI tools at scale.

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