We sat down with five marketing leaders across industries and org sizes to have a deep discussion about what’s really going on behind the data in our recent Voice of the CMO Report.
Senior Marketing Leader | Brand Strategy & Global Campaigns
This senior marketing leader has deep experience across brand, growth, and integrated strategy, They lead marketing organizations that connect creativity and performance and campaigns that drive measurable business impact — from brand storytelling and loyalty programs to data-driven acquisition across digital and traditional channels.
The findings highlight an overall willingness to integrate AI into marketing operations. Not only are two thirds (66%) of CMOs surveyed embracing AI with open arms, but almost all (>99%) respondents state that they are using either Generative AI or traditional AI in their department.
When it comes to AI implementation, I’ve seen a lot of premature action without a strategic plan. It seems to be a similar story from most — vendors and non-vendors — “this team was demolished and replaced with an AI tool.”I’m also hearing from my network that a brand manager is running a creative platform without having the right resources or time. Generally, the thought was that these tools will save time, money, and additional headcount. But it is important for people to go into it with the proper planning. Less, “here’s AI: now, go.”
To me, AI can also mean many different things. It can help me build a recipe for dinner based on what I have in my fridge, and it also can be a tool that I can use as a creative resource or a brainstorming partner, or streamline project management. People seem to be using it as such a blanket resource that I’m not sure they understand how to approach it strategically.
What I’ve also started to hear about is companies are experiencing AI whiplash. They might have reacted prematurely, and now they’re realizing that maybe they need to take a step back and think about building a center of excellence, or look at how it makes sense for teams to adopt it and what resources and training they need to do it properly and embed it as part of their culture.
It’s similar to the economic whiplash we saw after COVID — ramping up and hiring like crazy, only to have layoffs to “right size” 18 months later. In both cases, they’re reacting in the short term but not necessarily planning for the long term — “I have to adopt AI, I have to act, act, act,” but they’re not taking the proper thought or time to figure out how they should approach it. And often, the people who are actually going to use the AI product often aren’t the ones making the decisions about how they should be using it.
Going back to the fact that AI is this massive, overarching product that can mean so many different things, I think the ripple effects can result in job losses and rehires from making decisions based on the now, instead of planning strategically for the next three years. I’m starting to see some really promising and intentional approaches in my consulting, which gives me optimism.
The research reveals that while there is an overwhelming industry consensus that AI cannot be ignored, consumers don’t necessarily share CMOs enthusiasm. Not only are UK consumers almost twice as likely to have mixed feelings about AI (31%) than they are to be excited and optimistic (16%), there is also a clear disconnect between the extent to which CMOs use Generative AI and how comfortable consumers are with it.
As a consumer, I don’t always want AI. I think that’s going to be the other ripple effect. Even Coke’s latest campaign which had a fully AI commercial but also took a massive amount of prompts and then human hours to retouch. People don’t want that. This is where Boomers and Gen Z can actually align — they want something authentic. Humanity is the most important part.
When Meta launched their AI profiles the reaction was almost universally negative, and they got rid of them pretty soon after launching. Then there are AI influencers, which I am sure has legal implications — how can they even try the product they’re promoting? I know that’s not a new problem, we have celebrities promoting products they don’t actually use all the time. But they can actually use it, whereas I’m not going to trust an AI bot’s perspective of a chocolate bar because I know they haven’t eaten it.
I also believe there are thought leaders who are relying so heavily on AI writing tools and content at the expense of their own voice. They believe that they need to produce 10 LinkedIn posts per week just to keep up, versus one really great piece of content they actually thought about. And when they start to lose their voice, it can be hard to course-correct and find it again.
Consumers are more willing to buy into something that they believe in, that they have a personal tie or connection to, or an emotive story, versus just a “buy now” directive that is void of human touch.
The primary metric CMOs track has shifted from sales in 2024 (46%) to brand awareness in 2025 (62%), perhaps indicating a broader, more brand-building mindset. The findings suggest that CMOs in 2025 are operating with a sharper strategic focus. While financial pressures remain high, there’s a clear pivot towards prioritising long-term brand equity over short-term sales metrics, and a more comprehensive approach to measuring marketing effectiveness across the board.
I’m very optimistic about brand coming back into the conversation, bringing with it humanity and authenticity. There are stories that really can only be told at that level.
We all know that 95% of consumers aren’t looking for immediate purchase. You have to invest in brand. Having a CEO who understands the value of brand is priceless. There’s still a lot to be figured out when it comes to how to properly attribute brand, and maybe that’s where AI can come in. It’s great at social listening, so there is likely to be a way that we can use AI to pull more brand level analytics to complement lower funnel analytics to have a bigger picture dashboard.
ROAS is very important, too. If you’re putting money towards big ticket items, you should be able to see some sort of a return. Figuring out what that is can be tricky and complicated. But in the report there seems to be more of a shift towards realizing that. One of my biggest challenges in previous roles — both brand and performance — was teams who weren’t talking to each other with very different priorities, even though we were all working towards the same goals.
What excites me more than anything is being more connected to the CFO. Employees like to understand how they’re that cog in the wheel of the company, and marketing has to understand how it is a cog in the wheel in overall company goals, especially when it comes to revenue.
Earlier in my career, brand may have had some say on their own budget, but no real forecasting or data analysis. They were expected to just do their thing and report back on impressions. But giving them more ownership, which also starts with training. Something that is missing from a lot of organizations and leadership is proper training for the marketing team on their financial acumen, especially on the brand side. Then they can come back and report the real impact which finance can get behind.
