Marketing and sales teams at large U.S. companies are the least likely of any department to say the conditions for using AI well are in place, according to the 2026 AI Adoption Report from Wharton Human-AI Research and GBK Collective. In my view, that goes back to how AI arrived in marketing. It was sold to the people writing the copy, and the CMOs who answer for the brand were left to deal with the results.

A row of grey dots on a thin line with one orange dot dropped below it, on a torn paper card with orange and teal torn edges on a grey halftone background.
Six on the line, one off it. Studio artwork.

The researchers surveyed about 1,400 managers and employees in July 2026. All of them work at U.S. companies with at least 1,000 employees, across industries. The study counts marketing and sales as one department.

Marketing is a heavy user. Among marketing and sales managers, 70% use AI for formal writing and 63% for content creation. Yet on readiness, marketing and sales came last of the nine departments in the study. The study measures readiness through five conditions it groups under organizational alignment.

What ‘aligned’ means

The researchers described organizational alignment as a department where at least four of five conditions are in place:

  • Employees get adequate AI training.
  • Leadership has a clear long-term vision.
  • People have real choice over how and when they use AI.
  • People and processes don’t hold the department back.
  • Colleagues aren’t resisting.

Across all departments, 39% of managers describe that environment. In marketing and sales, 25% do. Among entry- and mid-level marketing and sales staff, 16% do.

So the people producing the most with AI are the least likely to say the ground under them is solid.

What it looks like in industrial B2B

Manufacturing and industrial companies reported the lowest share of strongly positive AI returns of any industry the study tracked: 24%, against 40% in tech and telecom.

I see the same pattern in Germany. This spring, a German industrial manufacturer I work with had so many AI initiatives running in marketing that its marketing departments needed an internal meeting just to agree on a direction. Licenses and pilots were there. A shared answer to “What is this for?” was missing.

CMOs in these companies care about quality, consistency and a brand that holds up in every market and in every agency’s work. The tools came in from IT at the bottom, but the expectations come from the top of the process. Nobody owns the middle, and that is where alignment breaks.

Nobody owns the middle, and that is where alignment breaks.

Senior people end up operating junior tools, and junior people end up guessing what good looks like.

An HR employee at a U.S. logistics company put it plainly in the study: “They have made a large investment in AI user licenses, but with almost no clear vision of what benefits they want to see.” I hear versions of that complaint from marketing teams, too.

The gap between levels

The report calls the gap between managers and their teams “the most consistent finding in this year’s data.” Across departments, 78% of managers say employees are adequately trained on AI. Only 56% of entry- and mid-level employees agree. In marketing, juniors produce much of the volume.

Senior people end up operating junior tools, and junior people end up guessing what good looks like.

What the next year asks of marketing leaders

The researchers expect the distance between organizations that have rebuilt their work around AI and those that haven’t to matter more, “as rising costs make partial implementation harder to justify.” I read that as a deadline for marketing.

Three moves would close much of the alignment gap.

  1. Say what AI is for in your department, in growth terms if you can.

    In the study, 35% of departments tracking at least one growth measure, such as sales conversion, report strongly positive returns. Among those tracking efficiency alone, 13% do.

  2. Run the five alignment conditions past your juniors and compare their answers with yours.

  3. Put senior judgement where the drafting happens.

    Juniors need a senior’s standards at the moment they write. That is the work we do at BBN AI Studio with signed skill sets inside the AI teams already use.

The tools are already in marketing departments. The next year will show whether the conditions around them catch up.