Survey: Marketing and comms see AI visibility as significant but are still navigating how to improve it

63% of marketing and comm pros surveyed say business leaders are asking about AI visibility, but in an odd twist, a plurality of respondents are leaning on marketing operations (17%) and paid media (35%) to influence it

Marketing and communications professionals are taking AI visibility seriously, but their ideas for improving it seem to be at odds with what can and cannot improve it.

That’s according to a new survey of U.S.-based professionals, the vast majority of whom work in-house (76%). While business and marketing leaders seem to believe AI visibility has a real impact on marketing, many are looking at marketing operations and paid media to drive results.

The survey was conducted by Sword and the Script Media, LLC in late July, using a commercially available survey panel, and the results are being published here for the first time.

Below are the findings. Click any graphic for higher resolution.

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1. Marketing has three primary views of AI visibility’s significance

Most marketers believe AI visibility is a significant part of their marketing efforts. The survey found nearly half (47%) believe AI visibility is either “highly significant (17%) or “significant” (30%). Another 19% say AI visibility is “moderately significant,” and 45% believe it’s “somewhat significant.”

Not everyone is as convinced. Some 16% of respondents, which is 1.5 in every 10, say AI visibility is “not significant.” Finally, 6% are unsure.

Analysis. At a high level, the data shows marketers tend to fall into three camps: advocates, fence-sitters and skeptics. More, but not most, are in the advocacy camp, which suggests more marketers are convinced AI is influencing awareness and demand. That’s the key — if AI is changing the behavior of customers and prospects — then it’s clearly significant to the marketing effort.

2. Business leaders are asking marketing about AI visibility

One sign a new marketing trend has hit the mainstream is when other business functions start asking about it. To that end, a majority of marketers who responded to this survey (63%) said business leaders outside of marketing have been asking marketing about AI visibility. This includes 29% who said they have asked “multiple times” and 34% who said, “once or twice.”

Analysis. Whether marketing is convinced of the influence AI has on marketing or not, marketing needs to be prepared to answer questions about it from business leaders. Moreover, they need to be prepared with detail and specificity that demonstrates they’ve looked closely at how it’s working, how it’s influencing customers and prospects, and what they can do to affect it.

3. No specific marketing team is tagged with AI visibility

When asked which team is most responsible for improving AI visibility, the survey found responses were all over the board. Marketing operations was the most frequently selected team at 17%, followed by product marketing at 14%, social media at 13% and creative/design at 13%.

Surprisingly, teams traditionally empowered with external communications were ranked the lowest among the options. Few marketers in this survey viewed SEO or organic search (8%) or public relations and communications (3%) as the team most capable of influencing AI visibility.

Analysis. The broad array of answers to this question suggests marketing hasn’t landed yet on an “owner” for AI visibility. This parallels other trends in marketing over the years. For example, social media was initially labeled as a fad, and then as its staying power became obvious, various marketing and communications functions would later compete for ownership.

More importantly, they seem to be looking for help in the wrong places. PR, comms and SEO ought to be the first teams marketing leaders lean on for help. Studies show that the structured format of news, press releases and blog posts tends to have a clear impact on AI visibility. Indeed, PR is having a moment to the extent even the tech analyst firm Gartner has weighed in.

With respect to SEO, PR and comms ought to be joined at the hip when it comes to AI visibility — the same way these teams worked together to rank in traditional search. If Google can’t crawl and index your content, the best content in the world won’t rank. That’s true with AI visibility as well.

4. What channels have the greatest impact on AI visibility?

Marketers taking this survey said paid media (35%) has the greatest influence on AI visibility. This was followed by shared media (28%), earned media (24%) and owned media (14%).

Analysis. These results are exactly backwards, which suggests marketing has some homework to do in understanding how AI is impacting their market. We have yet to see a single study that suggests paid media, including advertising, impacts AI visibility. In contrast, there are a plethora of studies indicating owned and earned media do influence AI visibility.

Earned media in particular has more credibility than paid media, because there is an element of third-party validation. The incentive of being paid to say nice things doesn’t exist in earned media, so it very naturally has more weight. For most organizations, the priorities ought to be owned, earned, shared and paid – and in that order.

Marketing operations (MOPs) plays an important role and has earned a spot as a marketing leader’s trusted advisor. It keeps sales and marketing aligned, helps the marketing organization quantify its impact, and is probably a good team to keep in mind for measuring experiments. However, beyond reporting, MOPs rarely have anything to do with marketing output and so they are the least likely team to influence AI visibility.

5. Do marketing teams have the skills to improve AI visibility?

Most marketing teams (65%) either “agree” (43%) or “strongly agree” (22%) that their team has the knowledge, skills and resources needed to improve AI visibility. However, a full 37% aren’t so sure, including those that “neither agree nor disagree” (26%), those that “disagree” (10%) and those that “strongly disagree” (1%).

Analysis. Given the context of previous questions — relying on paid media and MOPs for AI visibility — it’s reasonable to conclude that AI visibility is a bit of a blind spot for marketing. In other words, marketing’s confidence in their ability to grow their skills is at odds with what current research shows influences AI visibility.

6. AI will make human expertise more valuable

Most respondents (61%) said AI visibility will make human expertise “much more important” (12%) or “more important” (49%). Nearly one in three (29%) think it won’t make a difference either way. Finally, 10% believe it will make human expertise “less important” (8%) or “much less important” (2%).

Analysis. One of the pervasive problems in marketing is the “sea of sameness.” It’s the idea that the content produced by one brand more or less sounds the same as their competitors. This is especially prominent among B2B technology companies.

Those companies that rely on AI to write for them are liable to make the matter worse. Why? Because AI writing is by definition an “average” of all the writing on which it’s been trained. Here again there are studies — data studies, not opinion surveys — that show AI-generated content underperforms.

AI is an incredible tool, but it can’t feel, it can’t experience and it doesn’t have emotion. Those are uniquely human characteristics — and characteristics that connect people. Marketing has to strive for connection and you can’t get that out of a machine.

Recommendations

The findings of this survey present a two-part problem for marketing leaders. The first problem is understanding precisely how AI visibility is impacting their company and the second is teaching their teams how to influence the results.

Their very first step should be to research how AI visibility is affecting their brand. They need to speak with prospects, customers and sales and determine where and how AI is influencing customers’ decisions. A methodical audit for branded and non-branded keywords should be performed using the major AI platforms.

AI is moving very quickly, so the process should be repeated at least every six months or so. If AI visibility is in fact having an impact on your business, the next step is to educate your team.

The second problem is a professional development issue for marketing leaders: marketing needs to get their teams current on what influences AI visibility. Adding a few lunch-and-learn sessions, scheduling a few hours off-site, recommending an online course or sending members of your team to a marketing conference are easy-to-implement options.

Marketing tends to be a game of momentum. It takes time and effort to set things in motion and build that momentum. The best time to get started on AI visibility was a few years ago; the next best time is right now.

Methodology & demographics

This AI visibility survey was conducted by Sword and the Script Media, LLC in July 2026 using a commercially available survey panel. It surveyed 200 U.S.-based marketing and communications professionals. More than three-quarters (76%) of respondents worked in-house for a business (49), non-profit (11%), association (11%), government agency (5%) or academic institution (2%). Participants represent a mix of B2C (42%), B2B (18%) and hybrid organizations (24%), providing a broad view of how professionals perceive AI visibility.