Preparedness for the next few years of marketing looks wildly uneven, depending on which capability you ask about. A survey of 600 marketers rated their readiness across eleven areas, from AI-assisted workflows to cross-functional knowledge sharing, and the spread between the most and least prepared areas is stark. AI and LLM visibility comes back as the least prepared capability by a wide margin, while personalization and real-time analytics show the strongest concentration of fully prepared respondents.

Essential Statistics

• 64% of marketers report being not prepared for AI and LLM visibility, the highest not-prepared rate of any capability measured.
• 49% report being not prepared for AI-assisted workflows.
• Only 8% report being not prepared for marketing automation, the lowest not-prepared rate measured.
• 25% of marketers report being fully prepared for personalization, the highest fully-prepared rate measured.
• 21% report being fully prepared for real-time analytics.

Key Takeaways

• AI and LLM visibility showing the highest not-prepared rate suggests this is the single biggest readiness gap facing marketers right now, well ahead of other AI-related capabilities.
• Marketing automation showing the lowest not-prepared rate suggests this is one of the more mature capabilities across the industry, likely due to how long automation tools have been in use.
• Personalization and real-time analytics leading in fully-prepared responses suggests these are areas where sustained investment has paid off for a meaningful share of marketers.
• The gap between AI-assisted workflows and AI and LLM visibility, both scoring poorly but AI visibility scoring worse, suggests marketers are more comfortable using AI internally than they are managing how AI represents them externally.
• This spread suggests readiness for 2030 isn’t a single score. It’s a set of capabilities that need to be evaluated and invested in separately.

Actionable Insights

• Prioritize building AI and LLM visibility tracking and strategy before other AI initiatives, since this data shows it as the least prepared capability among marketers by a significant margin.
• Use your strength in marketing automation as a foundation to build outward into less mature areas like AI-assisted workflows, since automation shows the highest readiness of any capability here.
• Benchmark your own team against each of these eleven capabilities individually rather than assessing readiness as one overall score. This data shows readiness levels vary too much across capabilities for a single score to be useful.
• If personalization and real-time analytics are already strengths for your team, look for ways to apply those same processes and data practices to weaker areas like cross-channel integration.
• Treat AI and LLM visibility preparation as an urgent priority rather than a future initiative, given how far behind it sits compared to every other capability measured here.

‘Marketers are ready for personalization and automation. Almost nobody is ready for how AI represents them to customers who never visit their site. That’s the gap that matters most right now.’ – Neil Patel