A large majority of marketing professionals — 92% — now use AI in day-to-day operations, shifting the technology from novelty to routine. SAP Emarsys reached that finding after polling over 10,000 consumers and 1,250 marketers, and the results show a clear split between business gains and consumer concern over data handling.
“S AI marketing is now fully in motion: it has transitioned from the theoretical to the practical as marketers welcome AI into their strategies and test possibilities,” Sara Richter, CMO at SAP Emarsys, said.
Marketers report concrete efficiency wins. Seventy-one percent say AI helps them launch campaigns faster, cutting more than two hours on average from each campaign build. That time saving has freed teams from repetitive tasks, with 72 percent saying they can focus more on creative and strategic work. Firms are seeing commercial impact: 60 percent of marketers report customer engagement has risen, and 58 percent note improvements in customer loyalty after deploying AI.
Shoppers are reacting differently. The survey highlights a “personalization gap,” where marketing efforts fall short of consumer expectations. Forty percent of consumers feel brands do not understand them as individuals, a sharp rise from 25 percent last year. Worse, 60 percent describe marketing emails they receive as mostly irrelevant.
Trust in AI handling of personal information has weakened sharply. Globally, 63 percent of consumers say they do not trust AI with their data, up from 44 percent in 2024. The UK registers an even higher level of unease at 76 percent. Those figures coincide with fresh regulation across the region: a year after the EU’s AI Act was introduced, more than a third (37%) of UK marketers report they have overhauled their approach to AI, and 44 percent say their use of the technology has become more ethical.
That shift has created a debate inside marketing teams over how to balance responsibility with creative possibility. The AI Act offers clearer guardrails, yet more than a quarter (28%) of marketing professionals fear strict rules could curb creative work.
“regulation must strike a balance – protecting consumers without slowing innovation. At SAP Emarsys, we believe responsible AI is about building trust through clarity, relevance, and smart data use,” Dr Stefan Wenzell, Chief Product Officer at SAP Emarsys, said.
Retailers face a simple mandate: show the value of AI to shoppers. More than half of consumers agree AI makes shopping easier (55%) and faster (53%). Many shoppers use it to find products, compare prices or generate gift ideas, which signals appetite for helpful applications when those applications deliver clear benefit.
Some brands are moving beyond generic personalization and concentrating on problem solving. Sterling Doak, Head of Marketing at iconic guitar maker Gibson, said: “If I can find a utility [AI] that can help my staff think more strategically and creatively, that’s needed since we’re a very creative business at the core,” Doak explains.
Australian retailer City Beach found practical gain from targeted use. Mike Cheng, the company’s Head of Digital, said, “AI was able to predict where people were churning or defecting at a 1:1 level, and this allowed us to send campaigns based on customers’ individual lifecycle,” Cheng notes. That approach recovered 48 percent of flagged customers within three months.
Those examples share a common thread: AI tied to specific customer moments and clear outcomes, rather than broad automation that produces generic messages. SAP Emarsys frames this shift as the “Engagement Era,” and plans on the marketer side reflect confidence in continued investment — 64 percent of marketers say they will boost AI spending next year.
The core issue is not technology itself but how companies apply it. Brands that close the personalization gap tend to do three things well: explain what data they use and why, show direct consumer benefits from data sharing, and use AI to surface helpful suggestions instead of sending irrelevant mass messages. That combination builds a case for consent and can repair the trust deficit.
Practical steps already in play include more granular lifecycle campaigns, clearer consent options at point of collection, and greater emphasis on creative briefs that leverage AI for insight rather than for blunt automation. These moves free staff from manual tasks and let teams test higher-value ideas with customers.
Marketers who treat data governance and customer communication as part of the experience report better outcomes. The headline stats from SAP Emarsys suggest a clear trade-off: AI can lift efficiency and loyalty, yet poor handling of personal data risks undoing those gains. Firms that show how AI improves shopping for real people will have the best chance of keeping customers engaged.
AI sits at the center of many marketing stacks today. For it to meet expectations, professionals must keep the person behind the screen front and center.