Kantar: 75% of Marketers Plan to Increase Spending on AI Assistants

A Kantar "Media Reactions" study covering more than 800 senior marketers and nearly 23,000 consumers revealed that 75% of marketers intend to increase their investment in AI assistants in the coming period, signaling an accelerating industry bet on these tools.

The study pointed out that 62% of marketers view generative AI as central to shaping brand recommendations, meaning a growing portion of purchasing decisions may soon pass through conversational interfaces rather than traditional advertising alone—a shift that transforms the relationship between brands and audiences.

In contrast, the consumer side appears more cautious, as only 32% of consumers use AI assistants to search for brands, and only 23% trust their recommendations. This significant gap between marketer enthusiasm and public hesitation is likely to slow the adoption of this channel.

The study also recorded a decline in marketers' confidence in the balance of their media mix, with only 57% stating their mix is correct, down from 64% in a previous reading. This indicates a wave of re-evaluation occurring across advertising budgets and their distribution across various channels in pursuit of a clearer return on investment.

What do these terms mean?

**AI Assistants:** Conversational applications capable of suggesting products or brands based on user requests and queries. **Media Mix:** The distribution of the advertising budget across different channels, such as television, digital platforms, and press. **Generative AI:** Models that produce new text, images, or recommendations based on patterns learned from previous data, which is what these assistants rely on for their suggestions.