Shifting to customer-facing use cases Where do CMOs believe gen AI can have the greatest impact? On one hand, internal use cases have been adopted first and show strong potential, such as media optimization as well as market research, customer insights and trend spotting. On the other hand, gen AI leaders are pushing even more, focusing on complex but high potential customer-facing use cases like personalized content creation at scale, product discovery, and creative efficiency (Exhibit 16). For example, Kraft Heinz leverages AI in its new “Tastemaker” platform to generate creative concepts for new flavors, test them with customers, and even execute fully-fledged media campaigns. By embedding the platform into its marketing operations, the company has accelerated creative workflows from eight weeks to just eight hours, accelerating speed-to-market eight-fold while making content production more efficient and scalable. 30 30 Manuel Geitz, “How Kraft Heinz is using GenAI to reimagine the future of creative content,” Forrester, May 4, 2025. Exhibit 15 Web <2025> Exhibit <15> of <17> Efficiency gains through gen AI for leaders vs laggards,¹ % of respondents by efficiency bracket² Note: Figures may not sum to 100%, because of rounding. Gen AI leaders and laggards determined based on self-assessment of maturity along 9 dimensions: internal capabilities to define and lead gen AI strategy, strategy and guardrails for gen AI in marketing, data quality, technological infrastructure, pilots and proof of concept, deployment in production, process and operating model redesign, change management and training, efficiency gains through gen AI implementations. Gen AI leaders = maturity rating of 5.4 or higher, (4/9 or more questions answered with 6). Gen AI laggards = maturity rating of 1 or 2 (1 = very immature, 6 = very mature). 1 Question: What marketing efficiency gains have your company realized through gen AI over the past 2 years? What marketing efficiency gains do you project for your company from gen AI over the next 2 years? 2 Efficiency gain is defined as a reduction in expenses in % without loss of revenue. Source: State of Marketing Europe Report 2026, McKinsey, n = 500 senior marketing leaders across France, Germany, Italy, Spain, and the United Kingdom Gen AI leaders are already realizing considerable efficiency gains of more than 20 percent, while gen AI laggards are experiencing close to none. McKinsey & Company Gen AI leaders Gen AI laggards Last 2 years Average efficiency gains Next 2 years Last 2 years Next 2 years 0š5% Efficiency gain 6š10% 11š20% 21š30% >30% 17 17 7 33 27 14 7 20 3 57 89 11 70 16 11 3 22 +6 percentage points (pp) 28 1 5 +4 pp 40 State of Marketing Europe 2026