The marketing world is undergoing a seismic shift. Artificial intelligence (AI) is no longer a futuristic concept—it’s the engine driving innovation, creativity, and measurable success across every stage of the marketing funnel. During Google’s Think.Digital 2025 webinar, Itxaso Araque, AI Business Lead for EMEA North at Google Cloud, highlighted how AI is helping marketers take the lead. Her insights align seamlessly with the findings in the Boston Consulting Group’s December 2024 report, “The Blueprint for AI-Powered Marketing”, co-authored by Derek Rodenhausen, Ray Yu, and others.
Marketers who adopt AI early and strategically are achieving up to 60% higher revenue growth compared to their peers.
The AI Revolution Is Here—and Growing
According to both Araque’s presentation and BCG’s research, we’ve moved beyond experimentation. AI is now a performance lever—used to enhance everything from consumer insights to real-time personalization and content creation.
BCG’s global study surveyed over 2,000 marketers and conducted 50+ executive interviews. The results revealed that only 20% of marketers have deeply embedded AI into their workflows—but those who have, are seeing dramatic business impact.
Three Core Marketing Challenges AI Can Solve
Araque identified three key marketing pain points, where AI is already making a difference:
These categories closely mirror BCG’s strategic AI marketing framework, which emphasizes data foundations, predictive analytics, dynamic audience targeting, and cross-functional collaboration.
Case in Point: Estée Lauder’s AI Journey
Estée Lauder is a standout example shared during the webinar. The company uses Google Cloud’s Vertex AI to:
- Monitor consumer sentiment in real-time
- Optimize operations and streamline workflows
- Build new GenAI business applications
- Create and activate audience segments through natural language prompts
This strategy has enabled Estée Lauder to reduce operating costs, respond faster to trends, and deliver more personalized consumer experiences.
Charting the Path to AI Excellence: Four Maturity Stages
BCG’s research outlines a clear roadmap for marketers aiming to unlock AI’s full potential—divided into four maturity stages: Essentials, Scaling, Leading, and Transforming.
- Essentials – At this foundational stage, marketers focus on building strong data practices, piloting AI-powered campaigns, and creating modular, channel-agnostic content. They begin involving stakeholders across functions and prioritize AI-ready infrastructure.
- Scaling – Marketers expand their use of AI across more touchpoints, such as media and creative. They refine insight generation, introduce predictive modeling, and establish responsible governance frameworks to guide AI use.
- Leading – At this stage, AI becomes embedded across workflows. Marketers use AI to build and activate real-time audiences, shift budgets fluidly based on data, and generate personalized content at scale. The creative process is fully AI-assisted, from ideation to performance analysis.
- Transforming – Though still aspirational, this stage envisions a marketer + AI flywheel, where AI automates campaign planning, generates 1:1 content in real-time, and dynamically adjusts strategies based on live feedback. Marketers focus more on strategic direction, while AI handles complexity and execution.
This progression gives CMOs a practical guide to benchmark their current efforts, prioritize initiatives, and grow AI maturity step by step.
Unlocking AI Use Cases Across the Funnel
Araque concluded the webinar with actionable use cases categorized into the same three pillars:
These tools empower marketers to accelerate time-to-value, increase creative capacity, and expand across new channels.
The Future: AI + Marketer Flywheel
BCG envisions a future where marketers and machines collaborate through a self-reinforcing flywheel:
- AI gathers insights and predicts trends in real-time
- Marketers provide strategic direction and creative input
- AI activates high-value audiences and generates personalized content
- Outcomes are measured and optimized continuously
While no company has fully reached this “Transforming” stage, leading marketers are twice as close to achieving it compared to others.
Getting Started: A Playbook for Marketers
Whether you’re just beginning or scaling your AI journey, here’s how to take the first step:
- Assess your AI maturity with an internal audit or self-assessment.
- Identify key opportunities for AI within your marketing workflow.
- Set short-term goals, such as piloting GenAI for campaign assets or audience targeting.
- Launch a cross-functional AI task force to break down organizational silos.
The Secret to Sustained Success: People & Process
While much of the spotlight is on technology and tools, BCG reveals a powerful insight that often flies under the radar—one Google doesn’t emphasize explicitly. Roughly 10% of the payoff in AI-powered marketing comes not from platforms or data, but from people and process. True AI maturity requires more than just smart algorithms—it needs cross-functional buy-in. Leading organizations build “AI advocates” across departments like IT, finance, HR, legal, and creative. These advocates help break down silos, champion experimentation, and embed AI into the culture and decision-making of the entire organization. This human factor is the secret ingredient that helps brands scale AI sustainably and strategically.
Final Thoughts
AI is not just another tech tool—it’s a strategic enabler. As the BCG report and Think.Digital 2025 webinar clearly illustrate, marketers who embrace AI holistically—combining data, creativity, personalization, and teamwork—are not just surviving. They’re thriving. And of course, it’s not only marketing. In sales, if you look at AI combined with RevOps, again we see lots of opportunities rising. More about that in a next blog post.
Now’s the time to ask: Where can AI help us go further, faster, and smarter?
Download the full report: “The Blueprint for AI-Powered Marketing” by Boston Consulting Group and Google, December 2024. Watch the insights shared by Itxaso Araque during Google’s Think.Digital 2025 webinar.
Want help applying this in your business? I’d be happy to dive deeper with you.
