A new report from the Infosys Knowledge Institute, titled CMO Radar 2024, reveals that 73% of enterprises globally have implemented artificial intelligence (AI) in their marketing activities, with 52% of these deployments delivering measurable business value.
The research, conducted by the Infosys Knowledge Institute, surveyed 2,600 marketing leaders across industries in Australia, Germany, the Nordics, the UK, and the US.
The study highlights that AI is rapidly becoming a cornerstone of marketing strategies, with 96% of marketing leaders reporting its deployment in at least one activity. However, only 30% of leaders have implemented AI across all seven key marketing functions, including content creation, conversational agents, sales enablement, personalisation, campaign management, and analytics.
AI-fluent Chief Marketing Officers (CMOs) are increasingly seen as transformative figures within organisations. According to the report, 62% of CMOs expect their influence over broader corporate decision-making to grow as their AI implementations improve brand experiences, marketing efficiency, and effectiveness.
The Role of AI Fluency in Marketing
The report categorises CMOs into three groups—Leaders (13%), Learners (60%), and Laggards (27%)—based on their ability to derive business value from AI. Leaders are leveraging predictive AI to anticipate customer needs, optimise campaigns, and enhance marketing performance. Generative AI is also playing a significant role, helping CMOs integrate data, industry insights, and creative execution to strengthen team capabilities.
Sumit Virmani, EVP and Global Chief Marketing Officer at Infosys, commented: “CMOs face the dual challenge of fuelling short-term growth while articulating the value of their brand investments in the medium term. They recognise AI’s, especially generative AI’s, potential to help them rewire marketing for greater effectiveness. The Infosys CMO Radar 2024 unpacks the tactics that CMOs can embrace to get and stay ahead in these times of AI-powered transformation.”
Challenges in Delivering AI Value
While the adoption of AI is widespread, 48% of AI marketing deployments struggle to generate business value. This disparity underscores the importance of AI fluency among marketing leaders and the necessity of aligning AI initiatives with broader business and marketing strategies.
Satish H C, EVP and Chief Delivery Officer at Infosys, emphasised: “The findings of the Infosys CMO Radar 2024 report point to how forward-thinking marketing leaders are adjusting to this new landscape. By focusing on disintermediation for agility, businesses can swiftly adapt to changes and enhance their competitive edge.”
Four Tactics of AI Leaders
The report identifies four key tactics employed by AI-fluent CMOs to maximise business value:
- Embedding AI solutions into business and marketing processes, ensuring real-time insights and immediate adjustments.
- Aligning AI strategies with business and marketing goals to prioritise initiatives with high value and feasibility.
- Incorporating robust risk management into AI-powered marketing to ensure compliance and build customer trust.
- Optimising MarTech stacks for AI use, including advanced customer data platforms (CDPs) for real-time integration and personalisation.
Marketing leaders anticipate that AI will deliver measurable benefits within 18 months, including a 15-percentage-point increase in productivity, 13-percentage-point cost savings, and an 11-percentage-point improvement in speed to market.
Virmani added: “AI can be a key amplifier of marketing impact to the business and its influence within the C-Suite. The report underscores the tactics that CMOs can embrace to harness AI’s transformative potential.”
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