Dentsu finds growing belief among CMOs that AI can rival human creativity

A growing proportion of marketers believes generative AI can compete with human imagination, according to annual research published by Dentsu Creative.

While the global agency’s previous 2023 study found that three-quarters (75%) of marketing bosses did not envisage AI ever competing with human intelligence around creativity, in the 2024 CMO Report that proportion fell significantly, down to 65%.

Accordingly, last year’s study found 67% of marketers agreed AI would never be able to make ads that “truly move people”, versus 49% in its latest report.

Meanwhile, the report found that 79% of respondents believed marketing is a key driver of business transformation, with 83% of marketers agreeing creative concepts can help drive business growth and 81% perceiving creativity as “more important than ever."

Innovation was also viewed with favour—more than half (56%) of CMOs considered it a key driver of transformation and were thus planning to invest more than 20% of budget in innovation in the coming year.

But there was some uncertainty around how creativity applies in a landscape that is shifting from “omnichannel to omnipresent”, with more calls for a “new kind of creativity". Some 79% of CMOs were feeling "challenged to predict changing behaviours, and shape new products and propositions to serve them," the report said.

Here are the report’s key findings:

• 82% believed creativity has more potential than ever to unlock growth
• 88% of CMOs agreed it is more important than ever for brands to be part of culture
• 77% acknowledged that, in the future, marketing will be a collaboration between brands, creators and platforms
• 75% of marketers agreed that every touchpoint can and must tell the brand story— from comms to commerce
• 79% were challenged to use data and insight to predict future products and propositions
• The percentage of CMOs agreeing that generative AI will never make content that moves us declined 18 percentage points year on year
• 79% of marketers planned to invest more than 10% of their budget in innovation, 56% more than 20%
• 70% agreed they want their agency to bring them what they need, not always what they want; 78% agreed “I want my marketing activity to impact people, impact business and impact society."

Abbey Klaassen, global brand president, Dentsu Creative, said: “What we’re hearing from clients, and our survey confirms, is that they need and value creativity more than ever. But it’s a new kind of creativity; creativity that is business-driven, making an impact across every aspect of their organisation from comms to commerce to sustainability. In parallel, we see new attitudes to AI emerging, where it’s not a threat to human creativity but a way of giving human creativity superpowers, exponentially increasing the pace and possibilities of personalisation, real-time responsiveness and relevance.”

Pats McDonald, Dentsu Creative’s global chief strategy officer, added: “Brands and businesses are now in the era of sudden change. Changes we’ve anticipated for years are now accelerating dramatically and reaching critical tipping points accelerated by new behaviours, new technologies and new possibilities. We can’t reach new customers in old ways or make new work with old tools. Brands today will be built at the intersection of culture, commerce and community; in a world where stories are shoppable and stores are stories. The challenge for brands will be to engage communities in thoughtful and collaborative ways enabling scale, relevance and authenticity.”

The full report can be downloaded here.