AI and marketing in 2026: an explosive duo?
Updated: Oct 8
AI. Constantly and quickly expanding. AI is everywhere around you: ads, social media, restaurants menus, chat bots on shopping websites…and many more areas in your daily life that you might even not notice. But what about companies? Do they use AI for digital marketing? Well, either you were already wondering or that rang a bell, let’s dive into this.
Before addressing AI’s direct impacts on digital marketing, we need a little bit of context.
1. Did AI history predispose it to marketing application? The real definition of AI varies from one source to another but according to J.B Copeland in his article in Britannica, AI is defined by « the ability of computers or computer-controlled robots to perform tasks typically associated with intelligent beings, such as reasoning and learning from experience. » (2). He also explains that « Alan Turing », a british mathematician called was at the root of its late development since 1950 with a « theoretical work on computing machines and his famous practical test for computer intelligence ».Then, over the decades, AI slowly took over into more and more areas…until the last few years when it suddenly spiked. Why?
One of the reasons is the release of ChatGPT to the public on November 30th, 2022 by OpenAI, which suddenly incorporated AI in our overlay’s life as it was (and still is of course) available to anyone with a computer or mobile device through the browser or the app. Everyone has now access to it.Have you heard about the famous AI video of Will Smith that took over social media? It became a symbol and a reference to the AI’s beginning. The famous American actor was eating spaghetti with a fork, sat in front of a table with blurry graphics, almost non-existent details in a kind of loop, even a bit scary. Now if you compare to the current remake, you would be shocked…and it’s totally fair. Nowadays, millions of users use AI to find information, write essays or even discusses their problems just like they would with a therapist for example. Other AI platforms even came to light like Claude for example.
As we can often hear: « general tech progress never stops », but AI is different…and many people find it scary as it is quickly taking over many areas in our everyday life. Today we use it from social media algorithm, to recommendations on streaming platforms based on the shows you liked and watched, or bot assistants on websites to make help available 24/7 (customer services). AI is everywhere, just check your surroundings.
2. AI on a corporate level
Naturally, AI also expanded to companies, increasing productivity and efficiency, making work and tasks automatic, easier, faster but also proposing new insights. Companies usually have their own AI and not public ones for confidentiality and safety such as data privacy.
For instance, one can use AI to verify a report he carried out based on data performances. AI then proceeds to checks the writing, the accuracy, making sure that he didn’t made any mistakes and if necessary, fix them. Companies that use AI, says Somatirtha in his publication in Analytics Insights, « strategically see higher efficiency, relevance, and ROI ». (4)
3. How AI expands into digital marketing
Now let’s focus on marketing. AI also expands into digital marketing in a few different ways. Here are 4 main ways and steps that marketers integrate AI : a) Audiences definition and segmentation Being one of the largest uses of AI, this latter plays a big role here by helping marketers build, define and segment audiences, acting like it crucial collaborator. AI analysis « massive datasets such as demographics, purchase history, and browsing behavior, and predicts customers' future actions » states S.Halder in this article in Analytics Insight (1). It can thus come off with product recommendations and other personalisation parameters. Hubspot is one of the most famous software used by marketers.
b) Personalisation
A follow-up of the previous step but also a significant one. Here, the objective for marketers is to show the most relevant product/offer tailored to its corresponding audience through diverse channels (e.g: website, apps, newsletters and product suggestions). This is what A.Razzak calls « hyper-personalisation » made through the analysis of « vast quantities of customer data » such as « browsing history, purchase patterns, social media activity » in his article in Team CloudSource. As a result, this leads to « higher conversion rates », « stronger customer loyalty » and engagement. (6) Here, marketers usually use « Adobe target/campaign » or « Klevu ».Netflix is a helpful illustration here as it’s a widely used and known streaming platform. According to O.Rottenberg in her article in Pecan, marketers use a « recommendation engine » that influences « over 80% people » by showing them content/shows they might like based on what they watched and liked or not. This allowed ten to save 1B+ on an annual basis from this AI retention. (7)
c) AI content marketing Now, AI is also used to create content and improve creativity in marketing. That’s what C.Wainwright acknowledges as « content marketing » defining it as a « program that centers on creating, publishing, and distributing content for your target audience — usually online — to attract new customers » (5) through blog post, story telling, social media content but also website’s logos or layouts, for example. Likewise they did in the second step, marketers rely on the building and segmentation of the audience.This can be done thanks to « Jasper AI » for art creation and « Descript » for editing audio and videos.In order to better understand this step, let’s take the example of the Coca-Cola’s Christmas ad campaign. Rather than using real actors the company linked up with innovative studios to produce three holiday commercials, they use generative AI. While the end result looked sleek and professional, viewers criticized the ad for lacking warmth and attention to detail, qualities that were seen as staples of Coca-Cola campaigns.
d) Predictions and forecasts
While creativity and segmentation are widely used by companies, they still need forecasts to predict and prevent to campaigns’ performances. According to A.Razzak, AI usually serves to understand consumers’ actions and behaviour such as which ones models predict which ones are most likely to « convert, churn, or disengage » (6). Thus, brands have the opportunity to take early actions by « providing personalized offers, sending reminders, or running retention campaigns » thanks to data sets analyses which latter turn into human « data-driven decisions » (6)« Salesforce » is one of the most famous software for this. Starbucks forecasts demand by analysing parameters like « individual customer behavior, purchase history» (7) to then trigger « hyper-personalized offers through the Starbucks app.». This allows the company to predict « demand at the store and product level » in order to have a complete inventory and thus serve all customers. The « global ROI from AI at 30%. » (7)
In the end, they are all connected to each other. For instance, the construction and segmentation of audiences is necessary for personalisation, as this latter needs a study and relevant data in order to produce relevant personalised content to show to the right audience.
And the data speaks for itself...according to Eram Shaikh (12), audience research and segmentation delivers 2.4x ROI thanks to AI.
4. Future and limits of AI
Naturally, AI also has its limits and weaknesses which shouldn’t be dismissed.First, AI can’t replace humans, we are vitals especially in heavy decision-making. AI needs to be supervised: it’s a matter of collaboration as « AI is a tool not a replacement » reminds Kalum in his publication in Metricool. (8)Second, something that often popped up during my researches is that AI is not able to « define purpose or exercise judgment in ambiguous situations » as « it does not understand empathy » says N.Mehta in his Forbes article. (11)
Then, a huge issue with AI is the disastrous impact on the environment and the proofs are real: « water consumption could equal the basic annual domestic needs of 1.3 billion people » by 2030 and at the same time « its land footprint may exceed 14,500 square kilometres », alerts G.Moffett In his UN article. (10)It also drives ethics concerns and customers issues such as: « privacy concerns and security threats, transparency, data protection and discrimination » (4). Thus « clear policies and guidelines » need to be established, clarifies C.Inge in her Harvard article. (9)Finally, it is crucial that humans monitor and limit their use of AI in order not to end in a « misused and abuse of AI », that is to say an « over reliance on automation » (9) as it can « erode our ability to think critically and challenge outcomes ». (11).
Now, already taking a huge place in the market, the forecasts of the market clearly states that it might reach "$82.23B" (12) in 2030, meaning an augmentation of 220%.
5.To conclude
Now, maybe you find AI scary, fascinating or even both but I hope you learnt what’s happening in the world. Because AI is (and must) stay a tool or a collaborator rather than a substitute to humans. AI is accompanying our everyday life and it constantly and quickly makes progress, its capabilities shaping marketing.But do not worry: this article wasn’t written with AI, just like every other one on this blog. Keep in touch with reality.
Sources:
1* S.Halder, « How AI is transforming marketing », Analytics Insights https://www.analyticsinsight.net/artificial-intelligence/how-ai-is-transforming-marketing
*2 B.J.Copeland, Britannica, « History of Artificial Intelligence" https://www.britannica.com/science/history-of-artificial-intelligence
3* ProCon (unknown), Britannica, « AI: is AI good for society? » https://www.britannica.com/procon/artificial-intelligence-AI-debate
*4 Somatirtha, « AI in marketing: how AI is transforming digital marketing in 2026 », Analytics Insightshttps://www.analyticsinsight.net/artificial-intelligence/ai-in-marketing-how-artificial-intelligence-is-transforming-digital-marketing
*5 Corey Wainwright, « Content Marketing Strategy: a comprehensive guide for modern marketers », Hubspot, https://blog.hubspot.com/marketing/content-marketing-strategy-guide?hubs_content=blog.hubspot.com/marketing/ai-in-content-marketing&hubs_content-cta=describes-content-marketing
*6 Ali Razzak, « Marketing in 2026: The Future of AI in marketing », Team CloudSource, https://blog.teamcloudsource.com/ai-in-marketing-2025-trends-tools-strategies
7* Ornit Rottenberg, « 10 Companies Using AI for marketing in 2026 », Pecan, https://www.pecan.ai/blog/10-companies-using-ai-for-marketing/#3-netflix-churn-prediction-+-personalized-retention
8* Kalum, « 13 Brands Using AI for Social Media Marketing, Advertising and Content Creation », Metricool, https://metricool.com/brands-using-ai-social-media-marketing/
*9 Christina Inge, « AI will shape the future of marketing », Harvard Division of continuing education, https://professional.dce.harvard.edu/blog/ai-will-shape-the-future-of-marketing/#AI-Opportunities-and-Challenges
*10 Geoffrey Moffett, « AI’s environmental costs threaten water, land and climate », UN News (United Nations) https://news.un.org/en/story/2026/06/1167658
*11 Nimesh Mehta, « Why AI still needs human terminator: it’s iron man », Forbes https://www.forbes.com/councils/forbestechcouncil/2026/05/27/why-ai-still-needs-humans-this-isnt-terminator-its-iron-man/
*12 Eram Shaikh, « AI Marketing Statistics (2026) – Adoption, Growth & Industry Trends », Datarefs, https://www.datarefs.com/statistics/ai/ai-marketing/
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