As AI adoption continues to rise rapidly, there’s growing evidence that investments in the technology are starting to pay off, according to research by technology, data and services provider, Epsilon.

Original research of 300 senior brand marketers in Europe in its ‘AI in Marketing: Leadership and Impact in Europe’ report showed that 61% are already seeing revenue growth as a result of deploying AI within their businesses.

However, in spite the reported ROI gains, retailers are at very different stages of their AI journeys, the study suggests.

Its poll showed that only 16% of brand marketers using AI see themselves as ‘leading’, where they are developing their own in-house models, building proprietary tools or using Agentic AI. This dips to 13% of UK retailers, who trail those in France (19%) by -6 percentage points and in Germany (17%) by -4 percentage points.

Most marketers (36%) believe they are in the ‘scaling’ phase of their AI journeys, where the technology is being integrated across multiple channels to support media buying and personalised content. Meanwhile, two fifths (21%) remain within the ‘exploring’ phase, rising to 27% of UK businesses, where they are starting to test tools, like ChatGPT and AI-powered assistants, for more basic tasks.

Those in the ‘exploring’ phase tend to have lower expectations of the benefits of AI compared to marketers further along in their deployments, as Esme Robinson, Director of Platform Solutions at Epsilon, explained:

“What stands out is how expectations evolve once AI tools are actually deployed. They deliver on top-line metrics, like revenue and acquisition, but gaps emerge when it comes to deeper performance indicators, like conversion or ROAS.”

“That’s where identity becomes essential. Without a connected view of the customer across channels, AI doesn’t know what it’s optimising for – you lose precision and, with it, efficiency. The marketers seeing the strongest returns are the ones anchoring AI in rich, first-party data and a clear customer identity,” she concluded.