Marketers Plan to Use AI, They Just Have Not

Intent is near-universal while individual workflows lag behind it by tens of points.

DoubleVerify’s 2026 global insights report, based on 2,000 marketers, found 97% plan to use AI in media planning, buying and optimisation, but adoption by specific workflow remains thin: 37% for brief summarisation, 35% for campaign activation, 31% for in-flight optimisation and 29% for bid optimisation. Among those already using AI bidding, 98% report improved results. Accuracy at 35%, privacy compliance at 29% and cost-to-ROI at 29% are the leading selection criteria. Cision separately reports AI-related searches up 2,400% over four years, and finds that in best-car answers Toyota holds 13.8% of brand mentions while its own site is a minor citation source — meaning brand presence in AI answers is built largely by third-party content.