TLDR
The Advertising Research Foundation surveyed more than 200 U.S. advertisers and agencies across two waves and found confidence in AI outputs jumped from 82% to 93% in six months. Three independent 2026 surveys, from the ARF, Gartner and Australia's ACAM, now point to the same structural problem: AI spend is outrunning the ability to prove the investment works.
KEY TAKEAWAYS
What sits behind it is the problem.
The Advertising Research Foundation published its How Marketers Are Using Artificial Intelligence report on 16 September 2026, drawing on two nationwide survey waves across more than 200 U.S. advertisers and agencies.[2] The headline finding is hard to miss: average confidence in AI-generated outputs climbed from 82% in November 2025 to 93% by May 2026, an 11-point jump in six months.[1] Formal training programs followed a similar arc, growing from 50% to 70% of surveyed organisations across the same period.
Run the experiment forward and a question appears. If nearly every marketer in the room now trusts AI outputs, who is checking whether those outputs actually perform? The ARF flagged this directly: the industry has not matched its enthusiasm for adoption with equivalent work on validation, governance and measurement standards.
Scott McDonald, Ph.D., President and CEO of the Advertising Research Foundation, put it plainly: "AI is becoming embedded in how marketers work, from creative development to analytics and measurement. As adoption accelerates, the industry needs to put the same energy into validation, governance and standards, so marketers can understand when and how these tools can be trusted."[1]
Spend is there. The infrastructure is not.
Four months before the ARF report landed, Gartner published its annual CMO Spend Survey, conducted between January and March 2026 across 401 marketing leaders in North America, the United Kingdom and Europe.[3] CMOs are directing an average of 15.3% of marketing budgets to AI initiatives, yet only 30% report the readiness to scale those investments. Seven in ten CMOs are spending heavily without the organisational setup to capture what they are paying for.
Ewan McIntyre, VP Analyst and Chief of Research in Gartner's marketing practice, said: "CMOs recognize AI's potential as a force multiplier for growth, efficiency and transformation, but most marketing organizations are not yet built to capture that value."[3]
The ARF report covers a wide range of applications: creative development, media buying, customer engagement, analytics, campaign measurement, synthetic data and AI-generated personas all appear on the list of current uses.[1] Extensive testing of AI tools reached 64% of surveyed organisations. The ability to measure whether any of those applications work at scale has not kept pace with the breadth of adoption.
| Survey | Sample | Key finding |
|---|---|---|
| ARF (U.S.) | 200+ advertisers and agencies | Confidence in AI outputs: 93%; training programs: 70% |
| Gartner (North America, UK, Europe) | 401 CMOs and marketing leaders | 15.3% of budgets to AI; only 30% ready to scale |
| ACAM (Australia) | 126 CMOs and senior marketers | 83% in early maturity; none at highest maturity level |
The Australian picture is consistent, and sobering.
Two weeks before the ARF report landed, the Australian Centre for AI in Marketing published its own benchmark, based on 126 local CMOs and senior marketing leaders surveyed in September 2026.[4] Eighty-three percent of Australian marketing organisations remain in the early-to-mid stages of AI maturity, and none have reached the highest maturity level. The biggest barrier ACAM identified was roadmap, planning and investment strategy, not budget or technology access.
High confidence and low governance maturity can coexist easily: you trust the tool before you have built the processes to audit it. Across all three surveys, the question left open is what happens when marketers who are confident, spending freely and running thin on measurement infrastructure eventually need to account for returns.
The ARF is an industry body funded by advertisers and agencies, and its members have a commercial interest in AI adoption continuing. That does not make its data wrong, but it is worth holding in mind when reading its readiness assessments. Its next research wave will cover whether measurement and governance standards have started to close the gap the September 2026 report identified.
SOURCES & CITATIONS
FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS
What did the ARF's AI survey find?
How does the Gartner CMO Spend Survey relate to the ARF findings?
Where do Australian marketers sit compared with global peers?
James Dore is Strategy Director at Bushnote, a leader in SEO and AEO in Australia. He writes on search, AI and the technology decisions shaping government and industry.
