The study frames 2025 as AI’s pivotal moment, after discovery in 2023 and experimentation in 2024. Its central claim about the new reality is that AI efficiency is table stakes, so the question has moved to where AI builds competitive advantage.
The findings rest on 253 responses to the IRG HGAI Study 2025 and are organized around the four stakeholder groups of humanized growth: colleagues, customers, community and the capital markets.
Key findings
- Expectations of AI-driven competitive advantage are highest in measurement and insight, media and personalization, and creative and content, with figures in the high seventies to mid eighties.
- There is a wide gap between believing in AI and using it for growth. Seventy-six percent set against 51 percent on using AI today to drive business growth.
- On the value indices, colleague value indexes 122 against a base of 100, community value 118, and capital markets value 105.
- Adoption is treated as a partnership problem rather than a technology one, with human resources named as a partner marketing needs, at 66 and 78 percent.
- The personal dimension is measured too: 41 and 58 percent on using AI to increase personal wellbeing.
The mandate
The study gives CMOs three instructions. Focus on business growth, build AI capability, and personally lead by example. The third is not decorative: the deck argues that CMOs must embrace AI personally, and reports how many use it for their own wellbeing.
The role described is that of a change agent working through other functions. Empowering the team and unlocking collaboration means partnering with human resources to drive effective AI adoption, at 66 and 78 percent.
Where AI shows up in brand growth
The applications are grouped as AI powered brand growth: identifying white spaces, driving new brand consumption, improving brand experience, expanding brand solutions and driving brand innovation, supported by empathy at scale, creative development and content recommendation.
Insight is the most concrete of these in the case studies. At 7-Eleven, generative AI built into the insights platform analyzes responses from the customer research panel at mass scale, to understand what problems customers are solving with on-the-go snacking. At Mazda, AI-powered brains for brand and audience data support synthetic audiences, hypothesis evaluation and quick research into market gaps.
On media and performance, HP’s decade of programmatic buying is cited for more efficient budget allocation and better targeting. MercadoLibre reports optimizing text advertising, email and push notifications, with a ten percent increase in open rates and similar gains in conversion.
On creative, Mondelez uses AI for concepting in the early stages of campaign development to widen the range of ideas. SC Johnson works with its agency to create AI personas that can be asked for feedback on creative ideas instead of running traditional focus groups. Zespri generates its mascots for social content, cutting turnaround time and cost.
Value beyond the customer
The colleague cases are about giving staff better information. Lindex runs an internal AI tool that store employees can ask about anything from visual merchandising to customer policies. Chipotle uses AI with in-restaurant cameras to monitor staffing at peak times so demand is covered and waits are shorter.
The community case is about access. P&G is interested in generative AI to automate accessible advertising, including automatic subtitles and audio descriptions, on the argument that more inclusive advertising reaches a broader audience.
Audible’s use of AI for content recommendation and personalization is offered as the customer case: helping people find relevant content, which raises engagement and retention.
Scope and limitations
The quantitative findings rest on 253 respondents to the IRG HGAI Study 2025. The company examples are drawn from interviews with the leaders named, and several describe intent or potential rather than measured result.
Source
This page summarises Humanized Growth in the era of AI: Unlocking Business Value & Societal Impact, by IRG, Oxford Future of Marketing Initiative, ANA Global CMO Growth Council, 2025.