This is an excerpt from our Modern Retail+ Research report “The marketer’s guide to AI applications, agentic AI, AI search and GEO/AEO in 2026,” which explores how marketers are navigating the opportunities and challenges AI brings as it becomes an indispensable part of marketing. The report is based on a survey of 142 brand and agency professionals, as well as individual interviews with marketing and technology executives responsible for AI investments and applications development.
Modern Retail’s survey — which has been conducted annually since 2022 — found that marketers’ adoption of AI technology has risen significantly. In 2022, 44% of brand and agency pros said their companies were investing in AI technology. That percentage rose to 57% in 2023 and 71% in 2024, before hitting 86% in 2025.
AI’s growing importance for marketers has also become evident in the number of companies that have created chief AI officer positions over the past two years. In 2024 and 2025, brands General Motors, Mastercard and ZocDoc appointed AI chiefs, as did agencies Golin, Luckie & Co. and Horizon Media.
“In every industry there’ll be a percentage of companies that figure [AI] out, then a large percentage of companies that don’t. And I think the economic upside to figuring it out makes for such a big competitive gap,” Wesley ter Haar, co-founder and recently appointed chief AI officer of digital agency Monks, told Modern Retail in April.
