AI spend surges but marketers struggle to generate value

Marketers have adopted artificial intelligence at scale, but many still use it for one-way campaigns they describe as generic. Data issues limit their ability to respond to customers in real time.

Survey findings shared by Salesforce suggest a gap between AI investment and conversational marketing. While 75% of marketers said they use AI, 84% globally reported running generic campaigns. In Canada, 87% reported the same.

Marketers also reported rising customer expectations. Some 83% globally, and 88% in Canada, said customers now expect brands to sustain back-and-forth conversations. Yet 69% worldwide, and 67% in Canada, said they struggle to respond promptly.

Salesforce executive Bobby Jania said the gap is an execution issue, not a tooling problem.

"We are using the most powerful technology in history to send more one-way spam, faster," said Jania. "You can't give a customer a personalized recommendation or reply if your AI doesn't actually know who they are."

Data access

Respondents pointed to fragmented customer information as a key barrier. Many said they lack access to data that would provide customer context across departments. Only 58% reported complete access to service data, compared with 56% for sales data and 51% for commerce data.

Those limits appear to slow customer engagement. While most said customers want two-way conversations, many said they cannot respond promptly because they lack relevant context. The survey pointed to disjointed systems and poor data quality as top barriers to AI-driven personalisation.

Despite those obstacles, many expressed confidence in AI for customer responses. Some 81% said they would trust AI to help scale replies. The findings suggest data fragmentation, more than model quality, often determines whether brands can use AI for personalised engagement.

Jania said competitive advantage comes from the information available to AI systems, not the models themselves.

"Every marketer has access to the same AI models. So what separates the winners? Relevant context," said Jania. "Being able to harness the right context is the difference between an AI that automates the status quo and an agent that actually grows your business."

Unified records

The survey linked stronger responsiveness to more unified customer data. Marketing teams that said they had satisfactorily unified customer data were 42% more likely to regularly respond to customers and 60% more likely to use AI agents to scale their efforts.

It also found differences between teams that use AI agents and those that do not. Marketers using AI agents reported stronger cross-functional access to data: 75% of marketers with AI said they are satisfied with their ability to connect touchpoints, compared with 60% of those without AI.

The findings also pointed to a broader split between higher-performing marketing teams and the rest of the market. High-performing marketers were 2.8 times more likely to use customer data to create relevant experiences and 2.4 times more likely to have unified their data sources.

Changing discovery

The research also pointed to pressure from shifting consumer behaviour and AI-driven discovery. Nearly two-thirds of marketers globally, and 67% in Canada, said they are struggling to keep pace with changing consumer behaviours. Some 48% globally, and 44% in Canada, said they have not yet adapted their strategies to widespread use of AI.

Marketers also expressed concern that AI interfaces are reshaping the path from customer intent to brand engagement. The material said half of Google searches now feature AI-generated summaries that can reduce traffic to brand websites, with less emphasis on traditional search results pages and website visits.

Salesforce cited a growing role for AI and agents in commerce during the latest holiday period. It said AI and agents drove 20% of global orders, representing $262 billion in sales, as evidence that AI is moving from an efficiency tool to a customer-facing layer that shapes how people shop and discover products.

Marketers linked these shifts to higher expectations for relevance and speed. Some 86% of marketers globally, and 85% in Canada, said AI is raising customer expectations, adding pressure on brands to reduce generic outreach and increase contextual engagement across channels.

"The old playbook of 'broadcast and pray' is broken," said Jania. "They aren't clicking ten blue links on Google anymore; they are getting answers from AI. And as AI-driven interfaces compress discovery into fewer moments, brands have fewer chances to earn attention. That's why if you aren't optimized for this 'Answer Engine' world, you're invisible."