The gap between AI's efficiency promises and marketing reality

Optimizely, an AI platform for marketing, has released a global study of more than 2,000 marketing leaders across seven markets examining how AI adoption is reshaping the day-to-day reality of marketing work. 

It finds AI is helping marketers produce more, but it’s not creating the time and creative space they were promised. 

This suggest that while AI has become a core part of modern marketing, many teams are finding that time saved through automation is increasingly replaced by the work required to review, refine and manage AI-generated outputs.  

The challenge is no longer whether marketers are using AI. It’s how to make it work in a way that reduces complexity rather than adding to it. 

“For many marketers, the challenge isn’t AI adoption itself. It’s the amount of additional work required to make AI-generated output usable. More than three quarters (76%) of marketers spend at least three hours each week editing, fact-checking or correcting AI-generated output,” the Optimizely research team comments. 

“Fact-checking and hallucination review created more additional work than any other factor, cited by 48% of respondents, while 40% point to the time spent moving information between disconnected systems.” 

The study finds that pressure to move faster is driving compromises most organisations are not talking about: 

• 25% admit they frequently or always publish AI-generated content they know is not fully on-brand when under deadline pressure. 

• 30% say they frequently or always pass off AI-generated work as their own, human-created original work 

• Only 4% say AI saves them time at every stage of the process. 

• Only 19% work from a single integrated AI platform, while most continue to navigate a patchwork of disconnected tools. 

Executive expectations versus operational reality 

More than half (54%) of marketers surveyed say leadership underestimates the human effort required to make AI-generated work usable. The further teams are from day-to-day execution, the more positive the picture becomes.  

While 69% of C-suite leaders believe AI adoption is fully aligned across their organisation, only 27% of analysts within their organisations agree.  

And while senior leaders are significantly more likely to view AI as aligned (69%) and transparent (66%), the operational burden of reviewing, correcting and refining AI-generated outputs is felt most acutely by the teams closest to execution. 

“AI was supposed to give marketers room to think. What most teams got instead was more to manage,” notes Tara Corey, SVP of Marketing at Optimizely.  

“When the pressure doesn’t stop and the infrastructure isn’t there, everyone improvises … [but] the good news is that it’s a solvable problem.” 

You can find out more about the study here.