CMOs Want AI's Speed — and Fear Its Sameness
TL;DR: Dentsu Creative's 2026 CMO report finds marketers now want AI for speed, not miracles: 71% say it is improving speed to market, 70% have seen no real cost savings yet, and 78% fear optimising for algorithms is creating a sea of sameness.
The honeymoon ends, the marriage begins
Dentsu Creative's 2026 CMO report, Making It Real, surveyed 1,950 senior marketers across 14 markets, including Germany, France, the UK and the US. Its headline is a mood shift: chief marketers have moved from AI hype to AI pragmatism, and they are strikingly candid about what the technology is — and is not — delivering.
The numbers tell the story. 71% say AI is improving their speed to market. But 70% say they have not yet seen major cost efficiencies, and 74% are already considering replacing some of the AI tools they bought.
The fear of sameness
The most revealing finding is a creative anxiety. 78% of CMOs agree that optimising for the algorithm risks a sea of sameness, and 62% say AI-assisted creativity still cannot capture their brand's tone of voice, look and feel. In a German market already debating AI slop, that worry lands hard.
So where are marketers putting their faith? In the human and the real. 83% say hearing from real customers matters more than ever, 81% rate relatable creators and nano-influencers above celebrities, and 82% plan to invest more in real-world experiences — out-of-home, packaging and events.
Our read: AI for the plumbing, humans for the point
The honest translation of this data is that AI has become excellent infrastructure and a poor substitute for judgement. It compresses production timelines and handles the repetitive middle of the workflow. What it does not do — yet — is decide what a brand should say, or why anyone should care.
That maps neatly onto Dentsu's own framing: not how we can scale for sameness, but how we can intentionally design for difference. The risk is not that AI makes marketing worse; it is that it makes everyone's marketing identical — at which point distinctiveness becomes the scarcest, most valuable asset in the room.
What this means for your business
Use AI aggressively for speed and cost on the work that does not differentiate you — versioning, resizing, first drafts, reporting. Then reinvest the hours it frees into the things algorithms cannot copy: a genuine point of view, real customer stories, and physical brand experiences. If your AI strategy ends at produce more content faster, you are optimising straight into the sea of sameness everyone else is drowning in.
The CMOs in this survey are saying something every business owner should hear: AI will make you faster, not more interesting. The brands that win the next two years will spend the hours AI hands back on the one thing it cannot fake — a distinctive point of view. Efficiency is table stakes now; difference is the prize. — Daniel Nikolla, Founder of Merx Marketing
AI is becoming the plumbing of marketing — the advantage now goes to the brands that spend the time it frees on difference, not more sameness.
If AI is handing your team hours back, where are you reinvesting them — into more content, or into being harder to copy?
If you would like to know more about this topic, please contact us on danieln@merxmarketing.co.uk
Based on the Dentsu Creative 2026 CMO Report 'Making It Real', with reporting from Horizont and Campaign.
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Written by Daniel Nikolla, Founder of Merx Marketing Ltd and Marketing Minute
