A majority of chief marketing officers anticipate that AI will generate a substantial return on investment (ROI) over the next two years, but they also recognize the challenges of measuring the technology’s impact and using it responsibly.
While only 2% of CMOs surveyed in the Forbes Research 2025 AI Survey reported an ROI of at least 10% since implementing AI tools, 53% said they expect to achieve that level of return over a two-year horizon.
A majority of CMOs reported achieving a high or very high ROI across a dozen customer experience enhancement strategies in the survey, which in August and September polled 1,075 C-suite leaders — including 215 CMOs — from companies globally with annual revenue of more than $1 billion.
AI marketing efforts with the highest ROI from the 2025 AI Study
FORBES RESEARCH
Still, measuring ROI was listed as a top 3 challenge in trying to adopt AI over the next two years, cited by 41% of CMOs. Only 44% said they believe senior leadership at their organization understand the challenges of measuring ROI.
The biggest challenge to AI adoption, cited by about two-thirds (67%) of marketing leaders, was data privacy and security concerns. Nearly three-quarters (72%) of CMOs are confident that their organization is taking a responsible approach to AI data governance. However, only 57% feel that there are robust data governance practices in place to ensure data quality, privacy and security.
CMOs are also confident that the challenges brought by AI will be met head-on by a coordinated response at the highest level, with more than three-quarters (78%) agreeing that C-Suite members in their organization work collaboratively on setting AI strategy.
When CMOs were asked how they are using AI technology to optimize business and marketing operations, the top response (76%) was to leverage AI-driven customer insights across sales and service. Predictive analytics (72%) and the optimization of advertising and media strategies (71%) followed closely in the AI survey. A little over half (56%) expressed confidence in their organization’s ability to foster collaboration between AI and human creators to produce innovative content.
However, marketing lags other departments in using AI tools in decision-making and innovating, with just over one in five (22%) CMOs listing it among their top-three choices. This suggests marketing leaders are largely still working to realize AI-powered transformation.