A new report on the state of AI in technology marketing, released by Callan Consulting in April 2026, shows that artificial intelligence has moved beyond experimentation and is now embedded across most marketing operations.
The report identifies more than 70 distinct AI applications: from lead generation and personalization to sales forecasting, market intelligence, and content creation.
According to the findings, two-thirds of respondents, who were senior marketing specialists and organizations, say AI has a “strong” or “very strong” impact on their marketing teams, double the level reported a year earlier. At the same time, half of the organizations have already restructured their marketing functions around AI, integrating it into content, research, campaign execution, and analytics.
However, creator economy experts warn that rapid adoption may have come without fully considering long-term implications, and that the first signs of backlash are already visible.
“The ad industry became a playground for AI tools,” said Donatas Smailys, CEO and co-founder of Billo, one of the largest creator marketing platforms.
The report itself highlights a growing downside: overreliance on AI-generated content. Large volumes of similar outputs are already entering the market, increasing noise and reducing differentiation.
It warns that repeated reuse of AI-generated material risks creating “copies of copies,” gradually lowering content quality and originality across the ecosystem.
Some brands have already begun responding to this shift by explicitly positioning themselves against AI-generated visuals.
In a recent example, Aerie, a brand owned by American Eagle Outfitters, stated in a campaign that it would not use AI-generated bodies or people.
The report also points to structural challenges. While marketers report improvements in speed, output, and cost efficiency (in some cases up to 2-3x productivity gains), few are able to measure AI’s direct impact using standardized metrics.
The report concludes that while AI will continue to expand across marketing, its long-term effectiveness will depend on how organizations balance automation with human expertise, as differentiation increasingly shifts away from technology itself and toward how it is used.
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This entry was posted on May 4, 2026 at 10:23 am and is filed under Commentary with tags Callan Consulting. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.
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Brands Shift Back to Human Creators as ‘No AI’ Signals Grow Says Report
A new report on the state of AI in technology marketing, released by Callan Consulting in April 2026, shows that artificial intelligence has moved beyond experimentation and is now embedded across most marketing operations.
The report identifies more than 70 distinct AI applications: from lead generation and personalization to sales forecasting, market intelligence, and content creation.
According to the findings, two-thirds of respondents, who were senior marketing specialists and organizations, say AI has a “strong” or “very strong” impact on their marketing teams, double the level reported a year earlier. At the same time, half of the organizations have already restructured their marketing functions around AI, integrating it into content, research, campaign execution, and analytics.
However, creator economy experts warn that rapid adoption may have come without fully considering long-term implications, and that the first signs of backlash are already visible.
“The ad industry became a playground for AI tools,” said Donatas Smailys, CEO and co-founder of Billo, one of the largest creator marketing platforms.
The report itself highlights a growing downside: overreliance on AI-generated content. Large volumes of similar outputs are already entering the market, increasing noise and reducing differentiation.
It warns that repeated reuse of AI-generated material risks creating “copies of copies,” gradually lowering content quality and originality across the ecosystem.
Some brands have already begun responding to this shift by explicitly positioning themselves against AI-generated visuals.
In a recent example, Aerie, a brand owned by American Eagle Outfitters, stated in a campaign that it would not use AI-generated bodies or people.
The report also points to structural challenges. While marketers report improvements in speed, output, and cost efficiency (in some cases up to 2-3x productivity gains), few are able to measure AI’s direct impact using standardized metrics.
The report concludes that while AI will continue to expand across marketing, its long-term effectiveness will depend on how organizations balance automation with human expertise, as differentiation increasingly shifts away from technology itself and toward how it is used.
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This entry was posted on May 4, 2026 at 10:23 am and is filed under Commentary with tags Callan Consulting. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.