Most Marketers Still Skip AI for Influencer and CTV Campaigns

Quick Facts

Only 25% of marketers use AI for influencer marketing, with data analysis as the top use case at 75% of that group.
82% of survey respondents said they are not using AI in connected TV campaigns.
U.S. brands are projected to spend $13.7 billion on influencer marketing by 2027, according to eMarketer.

Marketers are adopting artificial intelligence across many parts of their business, but two major channels remain largely untouched. A Glossy+ Research survey of more than 100 marketing professionals, conducted in Q1 2026, found that 75% do not use AI for influencer marketing and 82% have not brought AI into their connected TV campaigns.

The findings come from Glossy and Digiday’s CMO Strategies research series. Earlier work in the same series showed advertisers moving faster on AI for social media and retail media. The gap between those channels and influencer or CTV work is significant.

Why CTV Lags

Harry Browne, VP of TV, audio, and display innovation at Tinuiti, pointed to creative pride as a core obstacle. “CTV is the type of creative that advertisers are most precious about. They have the most pride in what they put on the biggest screen in the house,” Browne said. “There is hesitancy to turn that over to an AI creative technology, where if something looks a little bit off, it could make the whole creative fall apart.”

Brian Albert, YouTube’s managing director of U.S. video deals and creative works, offered historical context. “AI adoption in CTV has historically lagged because TV was built on a broadcast mindset, whereas social media was built on data,” Albert said.

Among the 18% of marketers who do use AI in CTV, targeting and analytics dominate. Browne noted that AI is being applied to audience targeting and contextual targeting to determine where an advertiser’s ad belongs. He added that cost savings from AI efficiency can be passed directly to advertisers.

YouTube captured the largest share of ad budgets in 2025, with 50% of respondents naming it their top streaming platform spend. Amazon Prime Video with ads came second at 18%, followed by Hulu at 8%.

Why Influencer AI Trails

Consumer trust is a documented barrier to AI use in influencer marketing. A April 2025 study by the World Federation of Advertisers found that 96% of brands with no plans to use virtual influencers cited consumer trust issues as the reason.

Among the 25% of marketers who do use AI for influencer work, the most common application is data analysis, cited by 75% of that group. Content creation came in at 63% and influencer outreach at 56%.

Gautam Goswami, CEO of POP.STORE, told Digiday that creators struggle to manage volume. His platform sorts through direct messages to flag brand partnership opportunities. “Creators are basically chickens with their heads cut off running around all day long,” Goswami said, noting that creators told him 80% of DMs go unanswered.

Where AI Is Getting Traction

Some brands are moving ahead. Beekman 1802’s chief digital officer David Baker partnered with AI analytics firm Bezel to feed CRM and Shopify data into large language models. “We were able to throw all of our data at a large language model and really understand deeply who this consumer is and how many subtypes of consumer we have,” Baker said at Glossy and Modern Retail’s AI Marketing Strategies event.

Influencer agency Later uses an AI system to surface human creators for brand partnerships.

Broader AI adoption data shows the hesitancy is not limited to these two channels. A Glossy+ Research survey from Q4 2025 found that less than 43% of marketers use generative AI for data analysis or market research. Adoption falls further for creative development at 33% and campaign orchestration at 19%. Forty-three percent of marketers said balancing AI adoption with brand safety and creative control is a top concern.

Global influencer marketing spend is forecast to reach between $32.5 billion and $33 billion by end of 2026. U.S. brands alone are on track to spend $13.7 billion by 2027. The scale of the channel makes the slow AI adoption rate notable for operators building influencer programs at any budget level.