Artificial intelligence and machine learning have changed how we look at the world today. It continues to push the boundaries of human imagination in all the ways that matter. With the onset of generative artificial intelligence, or Gen AI, and tools like ChatGPT, Gemini, and DALL-E, our marketing approach has also changed.
Read along to discover how generative AI in marketing can solve different marketing-related use cases and propel the era of AI-driven marketing.
Generative AI refers to a subset of artificial intelligence that mainly focuses on creating content, instead of just analyzing it. This includes text, designs, music, audio, and video. Gen AI uses deep learning (foundational models) that are trained on large amounts of data and capable of performing multiple tasks in a very human-like manner.
Unlike other AI technologies trained to perform a single task, generative AI possesses broader capabilities.
You only have to enter a text-based prompt to generate unique content that resembles the training data. With the rising interest in generative AI, the number of industries using it has also increased, especially in marketing and advertising. For instance, we prompted ChatGPT to “Generate a tree diagram for how generative AI is applied in marketing”, and it produced 20+ use cases.
According to the State of Martech 2024 report, the marketing technology industry has increased by 27.8% from 2023 to 2024, with the total number of Martech tools growing from 11,038 to 14,108. Most of these tools are AI-based products or services in content marketing and sales automation categories.
Here are some other interesting stats showcasing the adoption and implementation rates of Gen AI in marketing:
There are many other AI use cases, with marketing not being the only one. Some of the others include Design (patterns, styles, and product designs), Gaming (characters, narratives, and game levels), and Entertainment (script, music, and visual effects).
A survey by McKinsey reports that 90 percent of marketing leaders expect to see an increase in the use of generative AI tools over the next two years. So, companies that continue to use AI in their efforts will see improvements, if one were to believe the stats published.
That said, these are the major benefits you can expect with generative AI in marketing:
As the name suggests, generative marketing deals with the application of generative AI in marketing – it can be organic search, social media, or paid advertising. Gen AI models are employed to create dynamic (not static) marketing content with the help of AI tools.
The way it works is simple: customer data from different departments is combined and then used to provide an omnichannel customer experience. For example, website visits, transaction details, and customer support tickets.
An approach like this brings together siloed data that is otherwise isolated from the other.
You can then use it for audience segmentation, personalization, and optimization. The aim is to create goal-based customer journeys with AI for each prospect and provide consumer-centric marketing materials, features, or product recommendations that help them reach that goal.
All of it is done with the help of generative AI marketing systems.
AI algorithms not only analyze customer data but also their responses to your marketing campaigns. If done right, these AI marketing systems will have the potential to optimize your content and ad performance in real-time and improve engagement plus conversion rates.
In this section, we will address the question, “How can generative AI be used in the field of marketing?” Although there are risks involved with using generative AI in marketing, one cannot ignore the benefits. It has multiple uses, from content creation to customer segmentation and personalization.
You can learn how to use generative AI models in different marketing scenarios, starting with the twelve outlined below.
Content generation is one of the most common use cases of AI and machine learning. AI content is all the hype today and is excessively utilized in content marketing. Why not? It speeds up the process by giving you new ideas along with a variety of content to work with.
For example, AI-generated text can be used to:
Generative AI is getting more sophisticated by the minute, so it’s no surprise that content marketers are employing it not just to increase productivity but to supplement creativity. In fact, content ideation (69%) and content copy production (62%) are the top use cases for AI in marketing, according to the Martech for 2025 report published by Scott Brinker and Frans Riemersma.
Beyond basic content creation, AI is also used for content optimization (49%) and A/B testing, helping marketers refine messaging and improve engagement rates.
AI text generators allow you to generate both short-form and long-form content at scale. This saves time and gives you the creative liberties to work with. Naturally, content quality is subpar and needs excessive edits. Paid marketing tools, like Jasper AI, solve this problem to some extent by giving you prompt templates for different types of ad copies. AI-driven content personalization (33%) also ensures that your content resonates with your target audiences and gets better conversion rates.
AI-powered tools like Midjourney, Adobe Firefly, Flux, and Runway can rapidly generate high-quality images and videos from simple textual prompts. They use generative adversarial networks (GANs) that help them with text-to-image translation. While the earlier versions of AI image models struggled with accuracy — often producing distorted details — the latest updates have made them more accurate and reliable.
This has led to the widespread adoption of Gen AI tools by brands to:
You can insert AI voiceovers and music to create engaging ad videos, which can help increase brand awareness and conversions. One prime example of a brand using generative AI in advertising is Heinz, which developed Heinz A.I. Ketchup, a short video ad designed to demonstrate the prominence of and reinforce the visual identity of its signature ketchup bottle design.
The report by Brinker and Riemersma listed image/video content ideation (44%) and image/video content production (36%) as the second-most common generative AI use cases in marketing. Although AI-generated video is still in its early stages, tools like OpenAI’s Sora are expected to boost adoption in 2025.
A thorough keyword research and competitive analysis are mandatory for a good SEO project. Experts analyze tons of keywords, their competitors, and user intent to build an SEO campaign that works. AI tools simplify this process by sorting out keyword data and listing high-performing keywords, search trends, and content gaps.
Marketers can quickly draft content outlines and optimize content copy for search visibility. All in all, a content marketer can learn about their audience’s search behavior – the topics, subjects, and words their audience searches for online – and cater to the same with relevant, search-optimized content that ranks and drives organic traffic to their website.
According to a survey by BCG, 41% of CMOs harness the power of generative AI for better targeting. Better targeting comes with proper customer segmentation. Marketing segmentation with AI involves the analysis of large amounts of customer data in short periods, producing highly refined audience segments.
This process can be automated and in turn aid marketers:
Beyond basic demographic segmentation, AI can analyze behavioral patterns, purchase intent, and engagement trends to create dynamic customer personas. Once you have your target audience, you can move beyond general segmentation and offer personalized, data-driven experiences.
Marketers can use generative AI to develop personalized marketing campaigns. With user likes and dislikes at their fingertips, they can shift the focus on the customer and give them what they want, right where they want it. With insights into user preferences, behaviors, and intent, marketers will further be able to:
AI-powered autonomous marketing systems simplify this process and help you personalize customer relationships with real-time content recommendations. Given that buyers now demand personalization at every step of the buyer's journey, it becomes crucial for brands to provide it. This is the only way to ensure customer loyalty and retention.
Generative AI can be used to analyze customer sentiments. With machine learning technologies and deep learning models, AI can process labeled customer data (e.g., reviews, feedback, social media comments) to create synthetic textual data that reflects different sentiment polarities like positive, negative, and neutral.
It can then be used as training data for sentiment analysis models so that they can better detect user sentiments and language variations. This in turn can help you:
IBM’s Watson NLP and Microsoft’s Azure Text Analytics can be used to analyze large textual data sets for sentiment analysis.
Some strategic generative AI tools can help with lead generation – lead capture, qualification, and scoring. You can easily rank and prioritize leads based on several factors, like demographics, online behavior, and purchase patterns. Doing so enables you to classify them on a spectrum as interested or ready to buy.
Here’s how you can accomplish this:
For instance, you can use AI to determine the ideal keywords and bid range for your paid search campaigns and predict the performance of future PPC campaigns. The Martech for 2025 report also highlights how AI helps with "chat with your data" analytics, making it easier to understand lead insights. It also improves email analysis and deliverability (26%), ensuring your nurture emails reach the right inboxes.
You must have seen some videos or podcasts with AI-generated voices on YouTube or Instagram. Audio content is the next use case gaining prominence after AI text, visuals, and videos. Surprisingly, audio and podcast production ranked as the top "yet-to-be-tried" AI use case in the Martech for 2025 report, despite the availability of advanced audio tools that turn text into human-like voiceovers.
There are multiple ways to use AI voice-over and audio tools, you can use them to:
Google’s NotebookLM can process your blog posts and turn them into conversational, AI-hosted podcasts. Other services, like Murf AI, can produce realistic synthetic voices for ads and other content formats. This ultra-natural text-to-speech technology provides a cost-effective way for brands to reuse old content and engage audiences with an immersive audio experience.
In Pay-per-click or PPC advertising, AI is best suited for brainstorming and idea generation. It can help you come up with creative concepts, headlines, and ad copy – providing new perspectives and variations. However, AI-generated content still falls short when it comes to the human touch of manually created ads.
Having said that, AI can assist your PPC ad campaigns in several ways:
With predictive analytics and AI-powered keyword research, marketers can determine search intent, ideal bid ranges, high-performing keywords, and negative keywords. They can simultaneously power retargeting campaigns by segmenting audiences and delivering personalized ads across relevant channels.
Conversational AI tools can respond to and solve customer queries. AI can handle all types of inquiries via chatbots, social media, and even over the phone. It is quick, efficient, and can optimize your customer service models.
Chatbots can enhance your overall customer experience and give your customer support teams more time to focus on other important tasks, ultimately boosting operational efficiency.
Cookieless marketing doesn’t rely on browser cookies for targeting users. It’s in the vogue today since many platforms (like Chrome and Safari) are limiting the use of third-party cookies.
For those who don’t know, cookies are bits of data stored in your web browsers that track your online activity and help advertisers with ad retargeting. With them out of the picture, your only option is to use first-party data in conjunction with generative AI technologies to:
Digital twins are an excellent way to use first-party customer data to predict consumer behavior. Of course, you need to ensure that you collect data with explicit user consent and comply with existing privacy regulations.
You must be familiar with the concept of buyer personas. They are fictional representations of your ideal customers that give you an idea about their goals, challenges, motivations, behavior, and interests.
Customer personas have sort of revolutionized marketing, enabling marketing organizations to build targeted marketing campaigns. However, it’s hard to design them yourself unless you use automatic persona generators.
Generative AI can help you create personas manually. ChatGPT and Bing Chat are some of the tools out there that can be employed for this purpose. With these services in place, you can:
Remember that initial outputs might be inaccurate since the data is random and entirely dependent on the prompts you use. For more information, refer to our article on creating buyer personas with generative AI marketing tools like ChatGPT.
Alternatively, you can try an online persona generator software like Persona by Delve AI to create personas for your business, competitors, and social media audiences. What’s interesting is that the tool uses your first-party and second-party data (web analytics, CRM, social audience data, competitor intelligence) in addition to 40+ public data sources (VoC data from reviews, ratings, community forums, blogs, and more) to create personas personalized to your business needs.
Of course, we use AI and machine learning technologies to accomplish this. So unlike your Gen AI personas, there’ll be nothing arbitrary about these personas.
We have discussed some of the applications of AI in marketing. You know you can create blogs, podcasts, emails, visuals, and even produce videos for ads and product demos.
Generative AI tools use generative adversarial networks (GANs) or variational autoencoders (VAEs) to process data and give out such results. There are a bunch of them in the market, but these are the best ones.
ChatGPT Plus is the advanced version of ChatGPT, which uses the GPT-4 model. It is apparently the strongest text generator there is, outperforming all of the others.
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Alternatives: Bing Chat, Claude, Gemini
Claude is a chatbot developed by Anthropic AI, designed to offer better (more human-like) responses than ChatGPT. It can be used for content creation, summarization, and optimization.
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Gemini is Google’s response to OpenAI’s ChatGPT, built on the upgraded Gemini model, earlier known as Bard. As with other text-generation chatbots, you can use it for writing, brainstorming, and translation.
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As mentioned, Jasper AI is a marketing tool based on the GPT-3 model that allows users to create copy for all types of content, like blogs, social posts, and website landing pages.
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DALL-E is OpenAI’s image generator that creates designs based on textual descriptions. DALL-E3 is the upgraded version trained to produce better outputs.
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Similar to DALL-E, Midjourney is an AI image generator based on machine learning algorithms.
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Firefly is a generative AI program developed by Adobe that allows users to create and edit all types of graphic designs with text prompts.
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Runway is a platform that has developed a text-to-video model, Gen-2, that allows users to create videos with prompts (sometimes using their images).
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Synthesia is another text-to-video platform that lets you create high-quality AI video content quickly.
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Sora is an AI video creation platform by OpenAI that generates high-quality videos from simple prompts. It uses advanced language models and visual/audio technology to simplify video production.
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Most AI marketing tools ease your work and guide you in the right direction. Additionally, you can use automation tools like Hubspot and Mailchimp to boost work efficiency.
Murf AI is a platform that turns text into realistic speech. It uses AI to create lifelike voiceovers for videos, presentations, and other projects with human-sounding voices.
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Google’s NotebookLM helps you create, organize, and research content using advanced language models. You can also leverage it to generate interactive podcasts. While it's not a full-fledged audio editing platform, NotebookLM can quickly generate scripts and audio-related content for podcasters, voice actors, and creators.
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In a perfect world, using generative AI in marketing would not raise any concerns. It would give you the ability to personalize your marketing efforts, with quick and actionable results. However, integrating artificial intelligence in marketing is not as easy as it sounds.
The potential risks far outweigh the benefits, ranging from biases and inaccuracies to issues of copyright infringement and data privacy.
Everyone has tried out ChatGPT or Midjourney at least once since they were launched. You must have noticed that the output is not accurate sometimes.
This is a major problem with AI-generated content. Although it’s vast and limitless, the chances of it being incorrect are equally high. Your AI marketing content could contain misleading information, which if put out in public could damage your credibility.
And this is not the only issue.
Since generative AI cannot fully understand human emotions and culture, it might produce offensive responses to certain groups of people. Funnily enough, even though it is wrong, the output is framed in a way that sounds right. So, thoroughly reviewing any AI content before you approve it for use becomes all the more important.
We know that AI models learn from existing datasets. The same is true for generative AI. Now imagine if this data is influenced or has some cultural, social, or political biases.
What happens then?
AI will generate outputs that will undoubtedly contain stereotypes. If you choose to use them as part of your marketing strategy, it would be really bad for business. This is secondary to the hit your brand reputation will take if you create content that is biased and promotes homogeneity instead of diversity.
Here’s an example. Take DALLE, OpenAI’s image generator.
Suppose it was trained on data that assumed all doctors to be men. The next time someone asks DALL-E to generate an image of a doctor, it might create images of only men in white coats. Thus, reinforcing gender biases and ignoring the multidimensional aspects of the profession.
Your company will need to put strict rules and policies in place when it comes to AI to stop this from happening and avoid any legal complications.
Generative AI is transforming marketing in more ways than one. You get a ton of information right at your fingertips, with all the resources necessary for a successful marketing campaign.
But do you know where this data comes from? Not really.
It is also hard for customers to distinguish between human-made and AI-generated marketing content. Buyers expect authenticity and transparency from the brands they follow. Even if you use AI, you have to be upfront about it with your customers because they deserve to know it.
As stated earlier, nobody knows where AI models get their data from. Literally, everything they create, from music to videos to text, is based on existing material that belongs to someone else.
Using it for inspiration is one thing. But directly copying the content gen AI churns out and calling it yours? Outright plagiarism. It’s no wonder that there are intellectual property and copyright infringement lawsuits against companies behind generative AI.
Case in point, the New York Times versus OpenAI.
Now there aren’t any federal laws in place that address this particular subject. However, users should be careful in the way they employ generative AI in marketing because even the prompts you feed into Bing Chat (or any other tool) are recycled and used to train the model.
Leveraging AI in marketing to improve customer experience involves the analysis of large sets of data. A lot of personal and private user data raises privacy and security concerns, especially with GDPR and CCPA restrictions in place.
Now, not all generative AI tools have permission to store sensitive customer data. Unauthorized data can pose great risks to the companies employing it, leading to severe penalties and data breaches. So before you start with AI, it's crucial to address its biases and prioritize transparency, accuracy, and privacy.
AI should complement and not replace human creativity.
While it is efficient and can speed up your work, generative AI lacks the empathy, emotional intelligence, and cultural nuances that should be the foundation of all your marketing activities.
There are a million ways to use generative AI but you need to know the proper way. You cannot just haphazardly integrate it into your marketing workflow and jeopardize your marketing campaign. Here's a simplified procedure to follow before you get started:
Step 1. Identify opportunities: Start by building a cross-functional team to spot areas where generative AI can be used, like content creation or data analysis. Focus on repetitive and time-consuming tasks that can be automated.
Step 2. Define business objectives: You should clearly define the business objectives you want to achieve with generative AI. It will help you choose appropriate tools and craft prompts that align with your goals.
Step 3. Set up a test environment: Creating a test environment is necessary to check out AI functions and find errors, if any, before deploying it. You should also constantly test your AI models to ensure that they give accurate results over time.
Step 4. Establish governance frameworks: It is a crucial step to maintaining privacy, security, and cost-effectiveness. Put AI regulations in place to prevent the distribution of harmful content and input of sensitive customer data into AI tools.
Step 5. Train marketing teams: Your employees should know how AI operates so that they feel confident when it comes to using it. Conduct workshops to educate them on the basics of generative AI and its potential applications.
Many companies have joined the generative AI phenomenon. While some have started using it to streamline customer interactions, others have utilized it to create striking visual content. Atlassian, Coca-Cola, and Duolingo are examples of brands using generative AI in marketing.
Atlassian is a software company known for its collaborative solutions that help developers and project managers efficiently work with each other.
It has recently introduced Atlassian Intelligence, an AI virtual assistant. Built with OpenAI LLMs, the AI assistant can:
We cannot discuss generative AI without mentioning creative ad campaigns. ‘Create Real Magic’ is a movement by Coca-Cola that combines AI with art and customer engagement.
The campaign uses GPT-4, DALL-E, and Coca-Cola brand assets to promote creators from diverse markets.
People can visit createrealmagic.com and develop art with Coca-Cola assets. If they make something extraordinary, their artwork will get featured on billboards in places like NYC and London.
Being all-inclusive, ‘Create Real Magic’ helps the brand achieve the following objectives:
Duolingo is one of the most famous language-learning apps out there. It has partnered with OpenAI to incorporate GPT-4 into its services and personalized learning in a way not seen before.
Leveraging data provided by the 500 million students who use the platform, the integration powers two new features.
Explain My Answer: Users get a thorough explanation as to why their answers are right/wrong with examples, similar to human tutors.
Role Playing: Users interact with AI personas to engage in unique language-based tasks, practicing language in various scenarios.
Generative AI is poised to disrupt the world but in a good way. As is evident from generative AI marketing use cases in design, content, and messaging, it will surely be a game-changer in years to come. While its short-term impact is slightly overestimated, it won’t hurt to be fully prepared.
After all, human creativity enhanced by AI tools can give results that marketers could have only imagined in the past.
Generative AI can be used to perform a wide range of tasks in marketing. It can be employed in:
1. Content creation
2. Image or video generation
3. Search engine optimization (SEO)
4. Marketing segmentation
5. Personalization
6. Customer support
7. Cookieless marketing
How are brands using generative AI?
Brands like Coca-Cola, Atlassian, and Duolingo are extensively using generative AI in their product and marketing strategies. Here’s how:
Atlassian: Uses an AI virtual assistant to simplify teamwork and boost productivity
Coca-Cola: Creates real magic by combining AI with creative advertising
Duolingo: Introduced an AI powered practice partner to enhance users’ learning experience
These are some of the generative AI tools that you can use in marketing:
Content creation: GPT-4, Jasper AI, and Wordtune
Image generation: Midjourney, DALL-E2, and Adobe Firefly
Video production: Runway and Synthesia