The Complete Guide to Using AI in Marketing

AI is changing marketing as we know it. Find out how to implement it into your strategy — and the benefits you will unlock.
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Updated on August 13, 2026

Thanks to AI, today’s marketers can create content, drive hyper-personalization, and streamline their everyday processes in a fraction of the time.

With tools such as monday CRM, professionals are discovering new use cases for AI in marketing. McKinsey expects this trend to continue, with 92% of businesses planning to invest in the technology.

That’s why it’s crucial that your business starts to explore the possibilities.

AI in marketing is the use of AI tools to gain deeper customer insights and streamline everyday workflows. 

By adopting AI capabilities such as natural language processing (NLP) and machine learning (ML), marketers can learn more about their customers, and ultimately deliver products that are hyper-personalized.

AI in marketing has many use cases, with tools such as monday CRM helping businesses to turn their raw data into actionable insights.

  • Automatic audience segmentation
  • Content creation
  • Bespoke product recommendation
  • Advanced sales forecasting
  • Search engine visibility boost

1. Automatic audience segmentation

AI increases conversion rates by using ML to segment customers into groups with shared traits to facilitate targeted messaging.

AI-powered customer relationship management (CRM) platforms are capable of this. monday CRM, for example, automatically groups contacts based on engagement signals, purchase intent, or pipeline stage. This means that you can personalize your messaging at scale to progress leads through the sales funnel.

Screenshot of monday CRM email. Source: monday CRM

Through its integrations with Gmail and Outlook, monday CRM lets users send personalized emails. Source: monday

2. Content creation

Increasingly, marketers use AI to create content, including social media posts, articles, newsletters, and more. AI tools can play a pivotal role in the content creation process by:

  • Drafting subject lines
  • Creating email copy
  • Captioning images
  • Identifying keyword opportunities

By automating these tasks, AI frees up users to focus on high-level objectives, such as giving final sign-off on a new marketing campaign.

For example, monday’s AI Sidekick can craft email messaging from a written prompt.

Screenshot of monday CRM email. Source: monday CRM

With monday CRM, you can generate email copy from a written prompt. Source: monday

3. Bespoke product recommendation

Online businesses can use AI to develop a deeper understanding into their customers’ habits. AI agents, for instance, analyze website visitor behavior in real-time to identify browsing patterns and suggest relevant products. 

AI chat significantly increases conversion rates, with 12.3% of shoppers who engage with AI chat making a purchase, compared with just 3.1% of those who do not.

4. Advanced sales forecasting

AI enables marketers to forecast future trends and informs their decision-making accordingly. Using ML to analyze historical data sets, AI produces predictive analytics. Predictive analytics suggests which products might perform better, informs pricing, and drives sales.

For example, monday CRM has built-in predictive AI tools, including a variety of sales forecasting templates to bring its analytics tools to the fore. Among other things, these templates feature AI-generated formulas to pull through real-time deal insights.

Screenshot of monday CRM templates. Source: Tech.co testing

A selection of monday CRM’s sales and CRM templates. Source: Tech.co testing

5. Search engine visibility boost

Using AI, marketers can improve search engine optimization (SEO). The technology can automate keyword research and optimize your content for SEO, ultimately increasing page ranking, and subsequently attracting more visitors to your website. 

Search engine algorithms change regularly, making it difficult for humans to predict which trends will next be popular. By streamlining the content creation process, AI enables marketers to quickly adapt to the latest standards.

Expert Tip

In 2026, it’s absolutely essential to implement AI into your marketing strategy. However, it’s even more important to make sure that this doesn’t come at the cost of human involvement.

When it comes to automating simple tasks and making life easier for you and your team, AI is unmatched. But remember: only humans can do the human stuff — relatability, empathy, and poignancy.

These emotions are the pillar of every marketing campaign. Don’t forget to include them in yours.

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Gus Mallett Senior Writer

AI in marketing brings numerous benefits, including increased efficiency, personalization, return on investment (ROI), and scalability.

1. Increased efficiency

AI increases efficiency in marketing by automating repetitive, time-consuming tasks such as data analysis, customer segmentation, and performance tracking. The knock-on effect of this is that marketers have more time to focus on higher level tasks, including strategy.

Reportedly, AI can reduce marketing expenditure by 15%–30%, while increasing operational efficiency.

2. Hyper-personalization

AI customizes offers and messaging based on real-time analysis of customer behavior. This depth of personalization forges a stronger bond between your customer and your brand.

76% of customers are frustrated when brands fail to deliver personalized experiences, spotlighting the vital role that AI can play in personalizing your messaging.

3. Improved ROI

By improving performance measurement accuracy, AI analytics enable businesses to optimize their spending and enjoy greater returns.

For example, monday CRM’s AI-enhanced CRM dashboards give users clear insight into their data, helping marketers to better understand key performance indicators (KPIs) such as revenue, customer acquisition cost (CQC), and customer lifetime value (CLV).

With access to this information, you can budget more accurately and improve performance against budget, ultimately improving your bottom line.

4. Better scalability

Marketers can confidently scale campaigns across channels and into new markets by leveraging AI, which can create high volumes of targeted content at speed. As the campaigns grow in complexity, real-time data access means that they remain targeted and effective.

To successfully implement AI into your marketing strategy, you should focus on the quality of your training data, monitor and iterate your AI tools, and upskill team members to get the best out of AI.

1. Supply your AI with good data

To build an AI platform that can effectively communicate with your customers, you need to supply it with a high volume of good quality data, particularly that which is related to customer preferences.

For example, monday CRM leverages data to predict churn, suggest next actions for individual leads, and intelligently route leads to specific sales reps.

When handling sensitive customer data, it’s critical to adhere to relevant privacy protocols. Practice good data governance and transparently explain to your customers how and why their data is used, to build trust.

2. Monitor and optimize your tools

Once your AI tool has been deployed, key stakeholders should monitor its performance over time, iterating as necessary.

To measure the success of your AI marketing campaigns, develop a rigid framework, and continuously monitor and evaluate your AI marketing against it, in order to improve.

This should include agreed-upon KPIs relevant to your campaign type. An email marketing campaign might focus on click-through rate (CTR), unsubscribe rate, and open rate (OR).

3. Don’t exclude human involvement

Human involvement in AI marketing is crucial. While AI is an effective facilitator, only skilled marketers can deliver empathetic storytelling, create genuine connection, and mitigate potential ethical issues.

Evidence is mounting that a hybrid approach, comprising human and AI involvement, is pivotal to marketing success, with marketers who deploy AI-driven content testing noting a 25% increase in engagement.

If you are using AI to generate most of your copy, you need an experienced copywriter or content marketer to sign-off on it before you publish. This helps to avoid potential brand voice mishaps.

4. Upskill your marketing team

Develop training programs, mentorship schemes, and other resources to upskill your existing employees on how to use AI in marketing. This will not only allay internal fears around job automation, but enable your team to fully realize the possibilities of this technology.

5. Optimize your page for AI visibility

Optimize your website to make sure that it is seen by as many people as possible. In recent years, search engine visibility has been one of the dominant metrics for website success, but that is no longer the full story. In 2026, appearing in AI chatbot search, as well as the AI Overview “snippet,” is equally as important. To do so:

  • Create authoritative, experience-led content
  • Directly answer user queries
  • Regularly update content to ensure freshness

The cost of implementing AI into marketing can range from $100 to over $500,000 per year, depending on whether you opt for an existing software as a service (SaaS) solution or a custom-built AI tool, as well as the size of your company.

For example, monday CRM pricing plans start at $12 per seat, per month, billed annually ($144 per year). At this tier, you’ll unlock AI Blocks and 6,000 trial credits, meaning that you can automate existing workflows to boost your productivity.

At the same time, large, complex multinationals will command significantly higher costs.

Using AI to contact customers raises several potential security risks. For example, many AI models are trained on user inputs, meaning that sensitive data shared with a chatbot could be used in future AI responses.

Furthermore, because AI requires large data sets for its training, this runs counter to existing principles to only collect required data.

To mitigate these risks, it’s important to notify your customers about how their data might be used. This is a good opportunity for your brand to build trust.

The future of AI in marketing will involve strategy ideation, unique customer engagement, and personalized storytelling.

1. Strategy ideation

AI is set to play a part in high-level marketing strategy. While it is currently the preserve of skilled human marketers, soon AI will be able to ideate and deliver compelling creative suggestions to steer decision-making at the highest organizational levels.

70% of marketers expect AI to play a larger role in future work. Before long, this will include strategy ideation and delivery.

2. Unique customer experiences

AI can provide unique experiences for customers who are “always on.”

Because of the modern proliferation of mobile and social media, marketers are required to deliver content at speed. With automation, AI has already eased some of this workload. But customers are increasingly demanding unique experiences. 

One example is Netflix. The streaming giant analyzes viewer behavior, searches, and preferences to suggest more content that a user might like. There is a clear market opportunity for bespoke customer experiences at scale and AI is the answer.

3. Personalized storytelling

By leveraging in-depth preference data, AI will allow brands to tailor storytelling to individual customers. Targeted advertising is already a big part of marketing in 2026, but AI is expanding these capabilities.

4. Agentic AI as an active collaborator

Agentic AI has the potential to go beyond simple automation and deliver active collaboration. Rather than executing requests, AI agents will autonomously launch campaigns, monitor performance, and iterate accordingly.

For example, monday CRM is soon launching a new feature, AI Sales Agent, which can perform personalized phone and SMS outreach at scale, as well as coordinating and scheduling follow-ups.

5. Elevated humanity

Somewhat ironically, the increasing prominence of AI in marketing will lead to a growing appetite for “human” storytelling. This will be built around authentic stories and voices, with humans firmly at the center of future marketing campaigns.

The best way to make sure your marketing doesn’t feel overly automated is by closely involving humans in every stage of the process. While AI tools are great for streamlining tasks, remember that only humans can provide authenticity and invoke real emotion.

Implementing AI in marketing raises several possible challenges, including ethical issues, technical limitations, a lack of buy-in from across your organization, and data privacy concerns.

No, AI will not replace human marketers. AI is only intended to support human marketers in their everyday jobs, taking on repetitive and time-consuming tasks, and freeing up humans to focus on high-level strategic and creative decisions.

Written By

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Gus is our Managing and Paying Employees Editor. He sits across multiple brands — Tech.co, Startups, and Expert Market — and uses his expertise in payments, project management, and people to shape our commercial content. Formerly a Senior Writer at Tech.co, Gus made the move to Managing and Paying Employees Editor in 2026. He has an extensive background in fintech, tech, and marketing.

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monday.com’s AI Work Platform gives modern businesses everything they need to thrive by bringing people and agents together to execute, manage, and drive business results. In addition to monday CRM for revenue teams and managing sales pipelines, the platform offers a wide range of advanced AI capabilities, including monday agents, monday vibe, and powerful built-in automations that help teams save time and work smarter.

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