Saving 13 working hours per week starts with embracing AI.

Marketers are adopting AI faster than nearly any other function, but most still aren’t seeing the full payoff. From productivity tools to AI agents and assistants, it’s impossible to navigate today’s workplace without having a basic understanding of AI. But what is AI’s actual impact on marketers’ everyday lives?

It’s easy to write off AI as a trend and put off learning how to incorporate it into your daily workflows. We get it; tech trends come and go all the time, so why invest in this one? AI has staying power, and there’s value in learning how it can make your job easier and save your team money in the process.

Today, AI can give you an edge when you know how to use it.

If you’re new to AI (or just interested in what high-performing teams are doing differently), we’re diving into how your peers use AI to create autonomous marketing.

AI is the function that powers autonomous marketing, or the practice of using intelligent tools to imagine, activate, and validate your marketing activities without manual, step-by-step workflows.

Marketing Brew and ActiveCampaign teamed up to explore AI maturity and where marketers are missing opportunities to grow. We’re covering:

• AI maturity levels
• how AI can boost productivity + save marketers money
• the AI adoption gap
• the path to autonomous marketing operations

Together, we explored the ways marketers can make the most of their AI investment and save up to a third of their workweek. Here’s what we learned.

What is AI maturity?

AI maturity is exactly what it seems: an individual’s sophistication in understanding, adopting, and implementing AI across their workflows.

The ActiveCampaign AI marketing maturity model was built using a survey of 1,000 US marketing professionals and business owners across five question categories. The maturity levels range from AI beginners just starting their journeys to experts using AI to shape the future of work.

Adoption isn't the finish line—maturity is

The data paints a consistent picture: AI is delivering meaningful time and cost savings for marketers—13 hours a week and $4,739 a month on average. But adoption alone isn't the differentiator. The real divide is between marketers who use AI for isolated tasks and those who apply it across their full marketing operation, from strategy through execution to measurement.

Most marketers haven't made that shift yet, which means the competitive advantage that comes with higher AI maturity is still very much available. The gap between where most teams are today and where power users are operating represents a significant opportunity for any marketer willing to move beyond surface-level adoption.

Ready to level up? Take the AI Maturity Quiz to see where you land (and how to advance up the ladder).

Productivity at scale

AI is reshaping marketing productivity from the ground up. Marketers are using AI to help streamline the brainstorming process, fine-tune tactics, and optimize strategies before launch, as well as to monitor campaign progress and understand what resonates with audiences.

The result of all that automation? Major time saved for marketers. ActiveCampaign’s 13 Hours Back Each Week report found that AI saves marketers an average of 13 hours per week. That’s nearly a third of a standard 40-hour workweek and an average $4,739 saved per month in operational costs.

In the research, ActiveCampaign found that 82% use AI for marketing broadly, but only 23% use it across all three of ActiveCampaign’s marketing pillars: imagine, activate, and validate (IAV). And while respondents reported that AI helps them save time and money, the Power Users who incorporate it into their daily work save an average of $5,299 per month in operational costs and 14.8 working hours every week.

Confidence boost

AI does more than help marketers save time and money. It also helps them feel better about the work they produce. ActiveCampaign reports that 77% of marketers felt increased confidence in the quality of their work after incorporating AI tools.

This shift from uncertainty to conviction suggests that AI’s value extends beyond just efficiency. It has the potential to change the way marketers approach strategy, creativity, decision-making, and more.

The AI adoption paradox

Even with AI’s many benefits to marketers, its overall adoption has been inconsistent. While 82% of marketers use AI for work, high adoption doesn’t equal uniform use or autonomous marketing. The difference comes down to who uses AI as a tactic and who uses it as a strategy.

ActiveCampaign recent research found that 23% of marketers employ AI across what it identified as the three critical marketing functions: imagine, activate, and validate.

• Imagine: the strategy and ideation stage, where marketers think big about their next campaigns
• Activate: the execution and deployment stage, where campaigns come to life as audiences interact with them
• Validate: the measurement and optimization stage, where marketers determine the efficacy of each campaign tactic and adjust as they move forward

There’s just one problem: AI is still being used in isolation because marketers don’t yet use it to build autonomous systems that can function across the entire marketing life cycle.

When marketers bridge the gap between using AI as a strictly tactical tool and its potential to create autonomous marketing systems, they can move beyond surface-level automation. By incorporating AI across the IAV functions, marketers can enable true autonomy.

What stands out in the data is that the marketers seeing the most from AI aren't just using it more; they're also more open about it. ActiveCampaign reports that 43% of Power Users are transparent about their AI usage, compared to just 24% of infrequent users. And that openness is paying off: 64% of those who share how they use AI received a positive public response. It suggests that confidence in your AI approach—and a willingness to stand behind it—is itself a marker of maturity, not a liability.

Early adopters

With their discovery of time- and money-saving tactics, perhaps it’s no surprise that marketers lead their peers in AI adoption. ActiveCampaign reports that organizations are 2.5x more likely to use AI for their marketing activities, as opposed to customer support, operations, or product functions.

Marketers’ early adoption of AI has turned the marketing function into a proven ground for organization-wide autonomous operations. AI is brought into marketing activities, fine-tuned, and then introduced into sales, enablement, and more.

This is where the adoption gap between power users and infrequent users widens. Power users sprint ahead in their confidence and productivity as AI use becomes more widespread across their organizations. Infrequent users who are slow to experiment with or incorporate AI into their daily workflows are more likely to get left behind.

Do more with what you have

For teams with limited resources, AI can serve as a competitive equalizer. And you’re farther ahead than you think. The money you saved by automating and streamlining your operations? It can be used to reinvest in your team or double down on your marketing efforts.

Got a small team whose schedules are already jam-packed? AI can help free up critical time by handling time-consuming, manual tasks. The proof is in the numbers: ActiveCampaign’s What is Autonomous Marketing? article found that 75% of marketers believe AI makes their business more competitive against larger organizations. Among AI Power Users, that number increases to 89%.

Thanks to AI’s accessibility, team size no longer has the same impact on a project’s final product. Instead, project success is more dependent on technical and AI acumen. For SMBs, this can be a differentiator. The smallest, mightiest teams can compete with enterprises when they have the right tools on their side.

The path to marketing autonomy

So how can marketers work toward achieving marketing autonomy? They can increase their AI maturity levels. To do so, you’ll have to go beyond surface-level tool adoption.

When entire marketing teams embrace AI across the marketing life cycle and boost their AI maturity, they can start to:

• predict market trends
• identify revenue opportunities
• personalize at scale
• validate results in real time

And here’s the kicker: It can all be done with minimal human intervention, allowing marketing teams to stay focused on what they do best.

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Autonomous marketing is possible with high AI maturity. AI is more than a trend; it’s a new way of working. Experienced marketers can use AI to make the most of their resources—and save time and money in the process.