New Independent Study Finds Marketing’s AI Ambitions Outpacing Execution

Zeta Global , the AI marketing cloud, published a Forrester Consulting Opportunity Snapshot, “It’s Time to Get Serious About AI’s Business Value.” This study finds that while many marketing organizations have begun implementing AI, most are still in the early stages of building the data, skills and systems required to scale it effectively and realize its full enterprise potential.

Business leaders are enthusiastic about AI’s potential and are taking steps to accelerate adoption. Marketing decision makers expect AI to deliver tangible outcomes, including increased ROI (64%), higher customer retention (63%), and revenue growth (58%), signaling strong confidence in AI as a strategic lever, even as execution lags intent.

The study, based on a survey of 300 North American marketing technology decision-makers, found that 62% of organizations describe their current AI deployment as “limited” or “moderate.” As enterprises pursue more advanced use cases, their ability to access, unify, and apply relevant data will determine how quickly AI translates into measurable outcomes. Forrester notes that AI’s long-term value in marketing will center on designing, orchestrating, and optimizing customer journeys. This makes the data foundation – authoritative, high quality and accessible – the critical building block for scale and velocity.

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“Marketing should be at the front lines of the AI revolution, but many teams are held back by fragmented data, legacy systems, and skills gaps,” said David A. Steinberg, Co-Founder, Chairman, and CEO of Zeta Global. “This study reinforces what we hear every day: marketers don’t need more AI promises; they need practical, scalable ways to turn AI into better performance. That’s the potential of an agentic future – systems that predict what to do and make it easy to act.”

Findings from the study include:

• AI thrives with focused personalization: Realizing AI’s full potential goes beyond implementation. Businesses that invest in AI-driven personalization are better positioned to meet evolving customer and employee expectations, creating a distinct competitive advantage.
• Building data and skills capabilities fuels growth: While 72% of marketers identified internal expertise and 63% cited data quality as areas for development, these insights are driving investments in talent and data governance —critical steps toward scaling AI initiatives.
• Strategic foundations unlock lasting impact: Successful AI adoption depends on mapping clear use cases, prioritizing data quality and governance, and enhancing AI skills to transition from experimentation to sustained value creation.

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Zeta Global (NYSE: ZETA) is the AI Marketing Cloud that leverages advanced artificial intelligence (AI) and trillions of consumer signals to make it easier for marketers to acquire, grow, and retain customers more efficiently. Through the Zeta Marketing Platform (ZMP), our vision is to make sophisticated marketing simple by unifying identity, intelligence, and omnichannel activation into a single platform – powered by one of the industry’s largest proprietary databases and AI. Our enterprise customers across multiple verticals are empowered to personalize experiences with consumers at an individual level across every channel, delivering better results for marketing programs. Zeta was founded in 2007 by David A. Steinberg and John Sculley and is headquartered in New York City with offices around the world.