How AI Is Changing Marketing: What Works Now

How AI Is Changing Marketing: What Works Now

Most marketing teams now use AI somewhere in their work. In HubSpot's 2026 State of AI in Marketing survey of 1,754 marketers, 98% said their teams use AI, but only 10% described their use as transformational. Ahrefs' September 2026 survey of 301 marketers found that 93% use AI to create or help create content, up from 87% the year before.

So the question is no longer whether marketers use AI. It is which tasks it handles well, which tools people actually pick, and where it still needs a human. This guide covers each major marketing task, using research published in 2025 and 2026.

Which AI tool fits each marketing task

Content and copy

Writing is still the most common use. The CMO Survey (2026), as reported in secondary summaries, puts content creation at 73.9% of companies using AI in marketing, up from 49.2% in late 2023. HubSpot found 80% of marketers use AI for content creation and named drafting or editing copy as the top single generative AI use case at 36%.

Tool choice has shifted. In HubSpot's 2026 data, ChatGPT use among marketers fell to 57% from 88% in 2025, while Claude rose to 20% from 11%. Ahrefs, whose question allowed several answers, found Claude used by 83.2% of its AI-using respondents, ChatGPT by 75.7% and Gemini by 57.9%. The two surveys sample different people, but both show teams spreading work across more than one assistant.

Volume has a cost. HubSpot reports that 52% of marketers think AI has made content so easy to produce that it has become less effective overall, and 53% struggle to make their content stand out. The practical response is to use AI for drafts, outlines and variations, then add the specifics only your team knows: customer stories, product detail and original data.

Images and video

HubSpot found 75% of marketers use AI for media production, and image or video generation was the second most common use case at 33%. In its tool list, Canva AI was used by 35% of marketers, CapCut by 17% and Adobe Firefly by 15%.

For video, a 2026 YipitData analysis of mid-market companies found HeyGen's customer count grew 152% year over year, Synthesia earned more per contract, and Runway led AI video generation by both customers and spend.

SEO and AI search

Search is where AI has changed the job most. Ahrefs' February 2026 study found that when a Google AI Overview appears, the top-ranking page gets a 58% lower average click-through rate, up from 34.5% in its 2025 study. HubSpot found 49% of marketers report less search traffic because of AI-generated answers.

This has created a new task, often called generative engine optimisation (GEO): making sure AI assistants mention and cite your brand. The CMO Survey asked about it for the first time in 2026 and found 41.5% of marketers already working on it, according to a secondary summary. A group of tools now tracks brand mentions and citations in AI answers, including Profound, Semrush AI Toolkit and Otterly.AI.

Google's own guidance is plainer than most GEO advice. It says AI Overviews and AI Mode need no special markup, a page only has to be indexed and eligible for a snippet, and llms.txt files neither help nor hurt in Google Search. In June 2026 Google added Generative AI performance reports to Search Console for a subset of sites, and in May 2026 Google Analytics added an AI Assistant channel that groups visits from chatbots such as ChatGPT, Gemini and Claude.

Paid ads

Ad platforms now automate targeting and creative by default. Google's AI Max for Search is an optimisation layer on existing Search campaigns that matches ads to queries beyond your keyword list, rewrites text and picks landing pages. Google says advertisers using the full feature set see an average of 7% more conversions or conversion value at a similar cost per acquisition, a figure from Google's internal data. Campaigns using automatically created assets or campaign-level broad match began upgrading to AI Max in September 2026, and Dynamic Search Ads follow from February 2027.

On Meta, Advantage+ creative generates and adjusts ad variations across image, video and carousel formats. In July 2026 Meta announced its Muse Image model and said advertisers would get access to it through Advantage+ creative.

The common complaint is reduced visibility: these campaign types hide more search terms and placement data than manual campaigns.

Email and CRM

Email platforms are moving from AI writing helpers to agents. Klaviyo released Composer to all customers on 13 October 2026. It answers questions about customer and campaign data, audits live flows, creates segments the user approves and runs scheduled recurring tasks. HubSpot's survey lists subject lines, body copy and repurposing content into social posts among common AI tasks.

Analytics

Google rebuilt the AI assistant in Google Analytics in 2026 as Ask Advisor, built on Gemini models. It answers plain-language questions, sends proactive recommendations and compares campaign results with peer benchmarks. Since February 2026 the Analytics home page has also summarised the top data changes since a user's last visit. HubSpot found over 40% of marketers use AI to learn from performance data.

Customer support agents

AI agents increasingly answer pre-sale and post-sale questions. Intercom says its Fin agent averages a 76% resolution rate across about 12,000 customers, priced at $0.99 per resolution. That is Intercom's own figure under its own definition of resolved, and independent comparisons report lower numbers, so test any agent on your own ticket history before relying on it. Klaviyo now offers Customer Agent with retail skills such as order tracking and returns, sharing data with its marketing tools. HubSpot reports that 86% of marketing departments use some form of AI agent.

Risks and limits

• Brand voice and sameness. When everyone drafts with the same models, content blurs. Over 80% of marketers in HubSpot's survey use AI to document positioning and keep content on brand voice, but that only works if the inputs are specific.
• Accuracy. AI states errors with confidence. In Ahrefs' 2026 survey only 2.7% of respondents trust AI content with no review, and two-thirds trust it only after a human checks it.
• Disclosure and law. Only 22% of AI-using marketers in Ahrefs' survey tell readers about AI use. In the EU, the AI Act's Article 50 transparency duties took effect on 2 August 2026, including labels for deepfakes, which can cover AI-generated people and voices in marketing.
• Audience trust. A Bentley-Gallup survey of 3,270 US adults (published August 2026) found 62% say businesses using AI to create people or voices in ads is unacceptable, even with disclosure. By contrast, 75% accepted AI for brainstorming and early drafts when disclosed.

FAQ

What is the most common use of AI in marketing?

Content creation. HubSpot found 80% of marketers use AI for it, and The CMO Survey ranks it as the top AI use case in marketing.

Does AI-generated content hurt SEO?

Google judges content on quality, not on how it was produced. The bigger SEO issue in 2026 is that AI Overviews reduce clicks to top results, so being cited in AI answers matters alongside ranking.

Do I need to disclose AI use in marketing?

It depends on where you operate and what you create. In the EU, AI Act transparency rules apply from 2 August 2026, including labelling deepfakes. Even where it is not required, the Bentley-Gallup data shows audiences react badly to undisclosed or synthetic people and voices.

Which AI tools do marketers use most?

General assistants lead: ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini and Microsoft Copilot in HubSpot's 2026 survey, followed by creative tools such as Canva AI, CapCut and Adobe Firefly.

Sources

• HubSpot, Current state of generative AI in marketing (updated October 2026): https://blog.hubspot.com/marketing/state-of-generative-ai
• Ahrefs, 69% of marketers are publishing more AI content than last year (September 2026): https://ahrefs.com/blog/marketers-ai-content-creation
• Ahrefs, Update: AI Overviews reduce clicks by 58% (February 2026): https://ahrefs.com/blog/ai-overviews-reduce-clicks-update/
• FirstPromoter, AI marketing statistics (October 2026), citing The CMO Survey 2026: https://firstpromoter.com/blog/ai-marketing-statistics
• Google Search Central, AI features and your website: https://developers.google.com/search/docs/appearance/ai-features
• Google Search Central Blog, Search Generative AI performance reports (June 2026): https://developers.google.com/search/blog/2026/06/gen-ai-performance-reports
• Google Analytics Help, What's new in Google Analytics: https://support.google.com/analytics/answer/9164320?hl=en
• Google, Ask Advisor in Google Analytics: https://business.google.com/us/accelerate/announcements/ask-advisor-in-google-analytics/
• Google, Dynamic Search Ads are upgrading to AI Max (updated June 2026): https://blog.google/products/ads-commerce/dsa-upgrade-to-ai-max-2026/
• Google Ads Help, Set up AI Max for Search campaigns: https://support.google.com/google-ads/answer/15909989
• Meta, Advantage+ creative: https://www.facebook.com/business/ads/meta-advantage-plus/creative
• Meta, Introducing Muse Image (July 2026): https://about.fb.com/news/2026/07/introducing-muse-image-meta-ai/
• Klaviyo, Composer marketing agent is now live (October 2026): https://www.klaviyo.com/uk/blog/composer-marketing-agent
• Klaviyo, AI agents for the autonomous B2C CRM (2026): https://www.klaviyo.com/newsroom/composer
• Intercom, Fin vs other customer service AI agents (2026): https://fin.ai/learn/fin-vs-customer-service-ai-agents
• YipitData, HeyGen vs Synthesia vs Runway (March 2026): https://www.yipitdata.com/resources/heygen-vs-synthesia-vs-runway-ai-video-platforms
• Frase, The 10 best AI visibility tools in 2026: https://frase.io/blog/the-10-best-ai-visibility-tools-in-2026
• Gallup, Americans aren't sold on businesses using AI in advertising (August 2026): https://news.gallup.com/poll/713222/americans-aren-sold-businesses-using-ai-advertising.aspx
• Cloud Security Alliance, EU AI Act Article 50 transparency obligations take effect (July 2026): https://labs.cloudsecurityalliance.org/research/csa-research-note-eu-ai-act-article-50-transparency-20260729/