The vast majority (92%) of marketing professionals are using AI in their day-to-day operations, turning it from a buzzword into a workhorse.
According to SAP Emarsys – which took the pulse of over 10,000 consumers and 1,250 marketers – while businesses are seeing real benefits from AI, shoppers are becoming increasingly distrustful, especially when it comes to their personal data. This divide could easily unravel the personalised shopping experience that brands are working so hard to build.
The rush to bring AI into marketing has been fast and decisive. As Sara Richter, CMO at SAP Emarsys, puts it, “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.”
For businesses, the appeal is obvious. 71 percent of marketers say AI helps them launch campaigns faster, saving them over two hours on average for each one. This newfound efficiency is doing what we often hear AI is best at: freeing up teams from repetitive work. 72 percent report they can now focus on more creative and strategic tasks.
The results are hitting the bottom line, too. 60 percent of marketers have seen customer engagement climb, and 58 percent report a boost in customer loyalty since bringing AI on board.
But shoppers are telling a different story. The report reveals a “personalisation gap,” where the efforts of marketers just aren’t hitting the mark. Even with heavy investment in AI-driven tailoring, 40 percent of consumers feel that brands just don’t get them as people—a huge jump from 25 percent last year. To make matters worse, 60 percent say the marketing emails they receive are mostly irrelevant.
Dig deeper, and you find a real crisis of confidence in how personal data is being handled for AI marketing. 63 percent of consumers globally don’t trust AI with their data, up from 44 percent in 2024. In the UK, it’s even more stark, with 76 percent of shoppers feeling uneasy.
This collapse in trust is happening just as new rules come into play. A year after the EU’s AI Act was introduced, more than a third (37%) of UK marketers have overhauled their approach to AI, with 44% stating their use of the technology has become more ethical.
This creates a tension that the whole industry is talking about: how to be responsible without killing innovation. While the AI Act provides a clearer rulebook, over a quarter (28%) of marketing professionals are worried that rigid regulations could stifle creativity.
As Dr Stefan Wenzell, Chief Product Officer at SAP Emarsys, says, “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.”
The message for retailers is loud and clear: prove your worth. People are happy to use AI when it actually helps them. Over half of shoppers agree that AI makes shopping easier (55%) and faster (53%), using it to find products, compare prices, or come up with gift ideas. The interest in helpful AI is there, but it has to come with a promise of transparency and privacy.
Some brands are getting this right by focusing on people, not just the technology. Sterling Doak, Head of Marketing at iconic guitar maker Gibson, says it’s about thinking differently.
“If I can find a utility [AI] that can help my staff think more strategically and creatively, that’s needed because we’re a very creative business at the core,” Doak explains. For Gibson, AI serves human creativity rather than just automating tasks.
It’s a similar story for Australian retailer City Beach, which used AI marketing to keep its customers coming back. Mike Cheng, the company’s Head of Digital, discovered AI was the ideal tool for spotting and winning back customers who were about to leave.
“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. Their approach brought back 48 percent of those customers within three months.
What these success stories have in common is a focus on solving real problems for people. As retailers venture deeper into what SAP Emarsys calls the “Engagement Era,” the way forward is becoming clearer. Investment in AI isn’t slowing down—64 percent of marketers are planning to increase their spend next year.
The technology isn’t the problem; it’s how it’s being used. Retailers need to close the gap between what they’re doing and what their customers are feeling. That means going beyond basic personalisation to offer real value, being open about how data is used, and proving that sharing information leads to a better experience.
The AI revolution is here, but for it to truly succeed, marketing professionals need to remember the person on the other side of the screen.
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