Future States & AI

Beyond the Hype: How AI Is Reshaping Modern Marketing

Beyond the Hype: How AI Is Reshaping Modern Marketing

  • ARF ORIGINAL RESEARCH

Artificial intelligence has rapidly become part of the everyday marketing toolkit, transforming everything from creative development and campaign measurement to analytics and customer engagement. Drawing on two nationwide surveys of more than 200 U.S. advertisers and agencies, this new ARF study explores where AI adoption stands today, which tools marketers rely on most, how organizations are validating AI outputs and the governance practices emerging as AI becomes central to marketing operations.

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Beyond Review: Why Human Judgment Remains Essential in AI-Assisted Research Design

Beyond Review: Why Human Judgment Remains Essential in AI-Assisted Research Design

  • Psychology of Gen AI
  • ARF; MSI

As generative AI becomes increasingly integrated into research workflows, what does "human in the loop" actually mean? This latest installment in the ARF and MSI's Psychology of Gen AI series explores how researchers and large language models can work together to develop rigorous research designs—and why human judgment remains indispensable throughout the process. By comparing multiple AI-generated experimental designs and refining them through expert evaluation, the study demonstrates that AI is most valuable as a collaborator that expands possibilities, not as a replacement for methodological expertise.

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Beyond the Dashboard: Rethinking How Marketing Success Is Measured

Beyond the Dashboard: Rethinking How Marketing Success Is Measured

  • ARF; The Advertising Club of New York

Marketers have access to more data than ever before, yet many still struggle to answer the most important question: Did the marketing effort truly make a difference? And if so, how? Lots of metrics exist. So, is collecting more metrics the best approach to evaluating true impact? In this guest article for The Advertising Club of New York, ARF Senior Director of Research & Insights Tracy Adams argues that the future of measurement isn't about collecting more metrics—it's about integrating multiple approaches to build a more complete, decision-ready understanding of marketing impact.

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How LLM Adoption Is Reshaping Search, Web Traffic and Digital Advertising

How LLM Adoption Is Reshaping Search, Web Traffic and Digital Advertising

  • ARF; MSI

As consumers increasingly turn to large language models for information, their wider online behavior may change in ways that affect search engines, publishers and advertisers. This MSI Working Paper analyzes detailed browsing data to examine what happens after users adopt LLMs. The researchers find that traditional search activity eventually declines by more than 20%, visits to smaller and education-related websites fall, and exposure to display advertising decreases. The findings suggest that LLMs are becoming substitutes for some established online activities while potentially concentrating traffic among the web’s largest platforms.

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Striking the Right Balance in AI-Personalized Advertising

Striking the Right Balance in AI-Personalized Advertising

  • JOURNAL OF ADVERTISING RESEARCH

Generative AI is opening new possibilities for hyper-personalized advertising, including the ability to create AI-generated faces that closely resemble individual consumers. But how similar is too similar? This Journal of Advertising Research study finds that while moderate facial resemblance can improve advertising effectiveness, excessive similarity may backfire. The research introduces a new framework for measuring facial similarity and identifies an optimal personalization threshold that maximizes purchase intentions while avoiding consumer discomfort and resistance.

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Bridging the Human-to-AI Identity Gap

Bridging the Human-to-AI Identity Gap

  • ARF COUNCIL REPORT
  • CROSS-PLATFORM MEASUREMENT COUNCIL

As generative search and agentic AI transform how consumers discover, evaluate and purchase products, traditional identity resolution and attribution systems are struggling to keep pace. This new paper by the Identity Resolution Working Group of the ARF Cross-Platform Measurement Council, introduces the concept of “Delegated Identity”—a framework designed to reconnect human intent with AI-driven actions in an increasingly AI-mediated marketplace. The report explores the emerging identity gap, evaluates industry readiness and outlines the challenges and opportunities facing marketers, identity providers and AI platforms.

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From AI Adoption to AI Accountability: What Comes Next for Advertisers

From AI Adoption to AI Accountability: What Comes Next for Advertisers

  • ARF; The Advertising Club of New York

Artificial intelligence is becoming deeply embedded in advertising and marketing, but adoption alone is no longer the story. In this guest article for The Advertising Club of New York, ARF Senior Director of Research & Insights Tracy Adams examines findings from the ARF's latest AI research, which reveals that while organizations are increasingly confident in AI-generated outputs, many are still developing the testing, governance and measurement practices needed to ensure those outputs deliver meaningful business value.

Beyond the Recommendation: How Prompt Language Changes How AI Frames Your Brand

Beyond the Recommendation: How Prompt Language Changes How AI Frames Your Brand

  • Psychology of Gen AI
  • ARF; MSI

Generative AI tools are not just recommending products—they are shaping how consumers perceive them. This latest issue in the Psychology of Gen AI series, the third phase of the seventh study on AI product recommendations, examines how small changes in prompt wording alter the explanations AI systems generate around the same brand. Using ChatGPT descriptions of Arm & Hammer Advance White toothpaste across multiple, shopping-related prompts, the study reveals how AI recommendations construct different product narratives, emphasize different benefits and even introduce different caveats depending on the consumer’s wording of their question.

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