Validity has released new research highlighting a widening gap between how marketers are adopting AI and how consumers are responding to AI-driven marketing experiences. The findings suggest that while brands are rapidly scaling AI-powered campaigns and content strategies, consumers are increasingly relying on AI tools to filter, summarize, or ignore marketing communications altogether.
The research, based on responses from more than 500 U.S. marketers and 1,000 U.S. consumers, explores how AI is reshaping product discovery, email engagement, trust in marketing content, and enterprise measurement strategies.
According to the research, consumer behavior is evolving rapidly as AI tools increasingly influence how people discover products and interact with marketing content. More than half of surveyed consumers said they now make decisions based only on AI-generated email summaries rather than opening full emails.
The report found that 35% of consumers skip reading the full email after reviewing summaries, while 15% avoid opening emails entirely and 5% delete messages based solely on AI-generated previews.
At the same time, marketers continue increasing investments in email marketing and AI-generated content. The research showed that 43% of marketers plan to increase email investment this year despite shifting consumer engagement patterns.
Validity’s findings indicate that many marketing teams are still struggling to understand how generative AI is influencing consumer purchasing behavior and product discovery.
Nearly half of surveyed marketers stated they have only a limited or basic understanding of how consumers use AI tools during shopping and decision-making processes. Additionally, 74% said they currently cannot measure AI-driven product research and shopping activity when it happens.
The report also highlighted growing enterprise interest in agentic commerce, with 44% of marketers expecting AI-powered autonomous shopping experiences to significantly impact their business within the next year.
"Marketers and consumers are at an inflection point," said Cynthia Price, SVP of Marketing at Validity.
"Brands are scaling campaigns with AI, while consumers are letting AI tools curate their inboxes—and that shift creates a real opening for the brands that get ahead of it. The ones who invest in smarter measurement, optimize for AI-driven discovery, and get their foundational data in order won't just stay visible—they'll pull ahead."
The research also revealed increasing concerns around trust and data usage in AI-powered marketing environments. According to the survey, 40% of consumers are less likely to trust marketing emails if they know the content was generated using AI.
Meanwhile, 15% of consumers reported disabling AI-powered email features entirely, while only 10% said they fully trust AI-generated summaries to accurately represent email content.
On the enterprise side, marketers cited internal data quality issues as one of the primary barriers to AI adoption. At the same time, consumers identified concerns around personal data misuse as their top issue related to AI marketing.
As organizations adapt to AI-driven engagement trends, Validity stated that its Engage platform is designed to help marketing teams improve campaign visibility, optimize deliverability, and gain stronger operational insights.
The company said marketers increasingly require tools capable of supporting AI-powered campaign management while maintaining confidence in data quality, customer engagement, and performance measurement.
The findings reflect broader shifts across the digital marketing industry as AI transforms both how campaigns are created and how consumers interact with brand communications. For marketers, the research suggests that success in AI-driven engagement environments may depend not only on automation and content generation but also on trust, measurement, and data governance capabilities.
About Validity
For over 25 years, thousands of the world's leading brands have relied on Validity solutions to achieve AI-powered marketing success—using trustworthy data as a key advantage. Validity's platform Engage is transforming the ability of these leaders to drive better engagement from their digital campaigns, bringing higher productivity, lower costs, and ultimately faster growth.
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