How Can Brands Use Generative AI to Accelerate Digital Marketing Performance?

What Are the 19 Essential Capabilities for AI-Driven Marketing Maturity?

New research from Boston Consulting Group and Google reveals why marketing maturity dropped 8% since 2021. Discover the 19 essential capabilities—from agile collaboration to privacy readiness—that companies must adopt to thrive in the era of AI and generative AI.

The bar for digital success has risen, and capabilities that were once optional are now mandatory for survival. Continue reading to identify exactly where your organization sits on the maturity curve and which specific capabilities you need to prioritize right now to avoid falling behind.

Recommendation

Rapid technological advancements are quickly reshaping the landscape of digital marketing as it becomes increasingly AI-driven. Boston Consulting Group offers insights from research undertaken in collaboration with Google, revealing how these shifts are affecting the markers of digital maturity for companies globally and across industries. Their white paper recommends next steps for brands at each level of maturity.

Take-Aways

• To excel in AI-driven marketing, companies need to upgrade their capabilities.
• Capabilities once considered optional have now become essential for excelling in digital marketing.
• Capabilities aren’t sufficient in themselves — companies need to engage in certain practices to realize the benefits of AI-driven marketing maturity.
• Brands should prioritize the acquisition of different specific capabilities depending on their level of maturity.

Summary

To excel in AI-driven marketing, companies need to upgrade their capabilities.

The rapid evolution of data-driven marketing means organizations must take action to advance their level of marketing maturity — and even to maintain it. Since 2021, companies’ average maturity decreased by 8% due to the intense challenges in maintaining capabilities.

“The bar for marketing maturity is constantly rising. Today, a mature marketing operation must be AI- and genAI-driven.”

Four factors are driving the need for increased capabilities: the development of AI and generative AI; the growth of cloud architecture and associated increases in IT complexity; the need for massive quantities of high-quality consumer data; and the increasingly omnichannel nature of digital marketing. These disruptors are creating the imperative for companies to increase their capabilities but also offer opportunities for boosting their productivity, profitability, and competitiveness.

Capabilities once considered optional have now become essential for excelling in digital marketing.

According to a global study of brands across 11 industries, 19 capabilities are emerging as essential for digital marketing maturity. Three of these capabilities appear foundational, as they underlie continuous learning and the acquisition of additional capabilities. These must-have capabilities include agile collaboration, specialist skills, and integrated planning.

A second category of capabilities includes those that were once optional but now have become necessary enablers for deriving value from digital marketing. These capabilities include, for example, a test-and-learn culture, data enrichment, and user identification. The 10 remaining capabilities belong to the third category, elevated capabilities — ones that can serve as game-changers and drivers of growth. These include, for example, data-driven content, privacy readiness in view of cookie deprecation, and genAI workflow reimagination.

Capabilities aren’t sufficient in themselves — companies need to engage in certain practices to realize the benefits of AI-driven marketing maturity.

By acquiring capabilities, organizations become able to pursue four practices that transform marketing maturity into business benefits. These practices include the following:

1. Understanding the connections between marketing performance and business outcomes in order to enable strategic decision-making.
2. Creating teams that possess skill sets for AI and genAI via external partnerships or internal sourcing of key capabilities.
3. Shifting from the mere collection of mass data to the purposeful activation of data.
4. Bypassing trendy use cases to instead select applications of AI and genAI that lead to business outcomes.

Brands should prioritize the acquisition of different specific capabilities depending on their level of maturity.

Every organization should work on building capabilities from all three categories simultaneously. However, they should also move toward maturity strategically, following the most direct route. Organizations in the earliest stages of marketing maturity should focus on privacy readiness, technology selection, and the provision of personalized, holistic customer experiences. Companies that have already started their digital transformation should focus on aligning KPIs with strategic goals, improving their measurement capabilities, and incorporating AI and genAI into their operations.

“By focusing on the capabilities that most powerfully support the four unlocks of AI-driven marketing value, brands can steadily improve their approach and become true innovators.”

Companies that have made substantial progress in maturity but have not yet reached the highest levels should focus on upgrading their ways of working and decision-making processes, and on employing AI and genAI to provide hyperpersonalized experiences.

About the Authors

Paola Francesca Scarpa, Henry Leon, and Javier Pérez Moiño are professionals with Boston Consulting Group.