Gartner’s top 5 AI trends analysed by our Senior Marketing Strategists

Having reviewed Gartner’s latest report on the impact of AI on marketing, we’ve reviewed the  five key trends that CMOs and their leadership teams must take action on.

While GenAI presents incredible opportunities for efficiency and creativity, the challenge lies in balancing these benefits with the human-centred realities of today’s marketplace. The future of marketing is not just at a crossroads, but a mega-intersection, with the decay of social media, a push for AI-free brand messaging, and GenAI’s disruptive influence on everything from search behaviour to staffing decisions. Portera’s insights will help you prepare for the seismic shifts ahead and turn disruption into opportunity.

Gartner trend No. 1: By 2025, a perceived decay in the quality of social media sites will push 50% of consumers to significantly limit their use of major platforms.

• Gartner impact: Consumer concern about GenAI spreading misinformation on social platforms remains significant, with over 70% believing AI will negatively affect these channels. Many platforms have already integrated AI, potentially accelerating perceptions of declining quality. Consequently, consumers are increasingly reducing their engagement with major social media platforms
• Our reflection: The divide will widen between low-to-no information users/audiences, and high information audiences. And with that will come a fundamental change in the places consumers inhabit, and their expectations of brands and media outlets. The flag wavers today are talking malevolent themes of misinformation and curtailing abuse, which is by far the biggest challenge for governments, regulators, and social media. But the problem for brands is less serious but similarly significant; the audience will run towards authenticity – for original, proven, authentic and real content. So generative content which lacks authenticity and relevance will be stone-walled, and the creative landscape will polarise to flawless, bland, programmatic ‘information’ and require exception, strategic, and dynamic creativity that is so human it is impossible for a computer to have thought of it. How marketing teams shape their processes, and choose their partners, will be key to this. Don’t fish where the fishes have long left, with the old fishing rod.

No. 2: By 2026, 80% of creative talent will use GenAI daily, allowing for more strategic work, resulting in increased spending on creative.

• Gartner impact: Using GenAI in marketing will accelerate the creation of innovative, highly-targeted, and personalized experiences. This will lead CMOs to allocate more budget towards both agency and in-house creative talent for strategic creative projects.
• Our reflection: The opposite will be true. Breaking this down, yes creatives will use AI daily, specifically GenerativeAI. And yes, some marketers will therefore do more strategic work, but the size of the pie will massively reduce, with a net decline in overall marketing creative services fees, and reduction in the use of ‘studio resources’. Organisations will see the continued shift of marketing responsibility towards pure commercial/sales functions and/or IT.  And as a result we will see the a consolidation of control and power into the key creative strategic powerhouses – usually the domain of the advertising agency, and the valorisation of the creative process will become more expensive, as CMOs crave the disruptive, authentic, unimaginable (by GenAI) ideas that truly break through.

This is counter to a lot of the mood music coming from CEOs and CMOs, but the elephant in the room is that GenAI presents a significant efficiency opportunity to the creative process… and what that means is less people. This is a hard message to manage publicly, and so whilst public comments may be about talent management and greater strategic impact, the reality is that it will be felt on the ground, where less boots treat the corridors of marketing departments and creative hot-houses.

No. 3: By 2027, 20% of brands will lean into positioning and differentiation predicated on the absence of AI in their business and products.

• Gartner impact: As AI becomes increasingly common in marketing, addressing concerns about consumer trust and confidence will be a major challenge. Some customers may shift their preferences towards AI-free, “acoustic” brands that emphasize authenticity and ethical practices. Brands that adopt an acoustic approach could stand out and attract premium or safety-conscious markets.
• Our reflection: This is not an either or, but should be seen across the (old-fashioned) hero-hub-help/hygiene content strategy of the past. Ai and automation will make it compulsory for all marketers to operate on a programmatic, AI-optimised way across the bottom of the pyramid. But brands will find ways to leverage the human-delta that will come to the top of the pile, in the way that the real, authentic, and unexpected human condition can be the differentiator in their marketing activation. This may indeed be the 20% that is the ‘wild card’. And more than it being the absence of AI that is the differentiation, but it will be imperfection that is the point of differentiation.

No. 4: By 2028, brands will see their organic site traffic decrease by 50% or more as consumers embrace GenAI-powered search.

• The impact: The rapid growth of GenAI in search engines will likely decrease organic search traffic for brands, as people increasingly get information from AI-generated results. CMOs need to brace for the impact on revenue and lead generation by adjusting their channel investments, emphasizing conversion-focused keywords, utilizing gated content, and possibly rethinking traditional channels like email.
• Our reflection: Only 50%, and we need to wait until 2028? This is a massive underestimate. The strategy of Reach – Interest – Engage – and Convert (to owned channels) is under massive threat. Brands need to reimagine their investments in core marketing stack technology, and ensure it is standardised now, but optimised for a hybrid content strategy.

What this means is the generation and syndication of their unique content across diverse platforms, without the ambition to drive traffic to their own platforms. Additionally, they need to reimagine and re-optimise how they are bringing content to ensure it is featuring within the AI results, providing proprietary anchors that ensure their content remains inextricably associated with their brand.

And the knock on here means it also impacts how they manage their data strategy across PII, CRM, and analytics and reporting.

No. 5: By 2026, 60% of CMOs will adopt measures such as content authenticity technology, enhanced monitoring, and brand-endorsed user-generated content to protect their brands from widespread deception unleashed by GenAI.

·       The impact: To protect their brands, organizations must focus on implementing measures for content authenticity and creating responsible-use guidelines for GenAI. With the absence of established frameworks and best practices, brands need to prioritize transparency and trust-building. This means demanding clear policies from vendors and agency partners and integrating content authenticity features into their technology.

·       Our reflection: On this we fully agree. Authenticity of content, as with product authenticity, will become a material source of differentiation. No longer will the brand logo be the annoying yet essential part of the communication to ensure recall and thus marketing effectiveness, but it will become the fiercely defended identifier of authenticity, where it is less about someone ripping off the ‘brand’ but instead a fundamental assault on the business itself. The need to ensure an advert is from Coca Cola will become as important as ensuring that can of cola on the shelf is, indeed, what it says on the tin.

To discuss one or more of these implications, get in touch today with one of our subject matter experts, to learn about how we are supporting businesses manage the transition to an AI enabled marketing strategy and execution plan.