StackAdapt’s AI Delegation Gap report reveals 90% of marketers are using AI, but few are comfortable with automating campaign decisions.
Less than a quarter of advertisers are confident that AI is making the right campaign decisions, new research has revealed.
StackAdapt published The AI Delegation Gap, which examines marketers attitude towards AI. The adtech firm surveyed 500 marketing and advertising professionals across North America, Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA), and Asia-Pacific (APAC).
The study found 90% of marketers are using AI, with 86% using it for most tasks, and 88% reporting it is driving performance improvements.
However, only 22% of EMEA respondents are confident in evaluating whether AI is making the right campaign decisions, and only 50% are comfortable using autonomous AI. That’s despite 59% of respondents stating they often or almost always act on platform recommendations.
Operational oversight is still needed, with 78% agreeing that AI should take action within a set of human-made rules. A further 89% of marketers agreed that AI should prepare actions for humans to then approve.
Nearly two-thirds (63%) of marketers cited brand risk as a major concern with using AI, alongside data quality (56%) and transparency (36%).
According to the study, when AI recommendations are ignored, it’s primarily because the advice given is “irrelevant” to the campaign or because it feels too generic (42%), it doesn’t align with strategy (22%), or it lacks an explanation or transparency (17%).
When advertisers do act on the recommendations, in a third (33%) of cases it’s because there is a clear explanation or rationale from the AI or it ties clearly to a KPI advertisers care about (31%).
This is significant as much of the primary concerns around AI have traditionally been around trust, but this new research illustrates that relevance is actually a preliminary issue.
There are still safety concerns, with 41% of advertisers wanting AI to flag risks before they escalate. But most are looking for automated tasks like insight summaries (41%), campaign recommendations (39%), and performance changes (35%).
Regional characteristics
There are inconsistencies between regions when it comes to acting on AI recommendations. Respondents in North America are more cautious, with just 47% of marketers acting on platform recommendations often or almost always – but this figure rises to 59% in EMEA and 60% in APAC.
AI usage is at its highest in APAC with 92% of respondents using it compared to 91% in North America and 90% in EMEA.
Liam McCarten, vice president of Sales at StackAdapt said: “In APAC, we have a clear split: AI adoption is racing ahead, but our operational readiness is lagging behind. Clients are under real pressure to scale up, but momentum often stalls when they hit disconnected data or unclear ways of measuring success. The issue isn’t a lack of appetite for AI – it’s having the right infrastructure to back it up. To build trust, we must stop treating AI as a ‘set-and-forget’ tool. We need to provide clients with connected data and a clear view of accountability.
“This turns AI from a black box suggestion into a partner that actually delivers on campaign performance. For APAC, the path forward is simple operational discipline: linking our marketing tech to real business outcomes, so that leaders can move from ‘experimenting’ to ‘scaling’ AI with confidence.”
North America is a region which, on the whole, centres around validation – audit trails, reversability, and approval workflows. In contrast, EMEA is more open to proactive intelligence, especially when tied to KPIs and relevant to strategy. Meanwhile, APAC is focused on well-connected data and contextual recommendations with clear team ownership.
Requirements across regions, although not identical, are consistent. No matter where marketers are, their AI tools need to be controllable, accountable, explainable, and relevant.
Downwards pressure
Ryan Nelsen, chief marketing officer at StackAdapt said: “AI adoption is no longer the question. Trust is. Marketers already rely on AI to accelerate workflows and surface insights, but they’re also defining where human judgment remains essential, exposing a lack of trust.”
“The EMEA market is hungry for proactive intelligence, but it might be grounded in strategic relevance above all else for advertisers and marketers to hand over the reins. The companies that close the AI delegation gap will be the ones that build the governance, confidence and operating models needed to let humans and AI make better decisions together.”
Advertisers are chiefly using AI to report summaries (77%), for performance analysis and insights (74%), creative development (69%), research discovery (68%) and optimisation and in-flight adjustments (51%).
There’s significant pressure to use AI, with 80% of EMEA respondents feeling “moderate or strong pressure” to increase their AI usage, and 53% believing leadership expectations are already ahead of their organisation’s current readiness.
Only 19% of respondents said their AI tools were fully integrated into their workflows. While almost half (49%) reported fragmented data pipelines were a barrier to AI, and that first-party data isn’t integrated with buying platforms (41%). The majority (83%) said varying AI capabilities are disruptive to their efficiency.
Although trust and accountability with AI is clearly becoming less of a concern as technology develops, there are still issues with adoption – primarily in efficiency and relevance.
