AI makes content easier to produce, but CMOs fear there’s now too much of it

New Delhi: Artificial intelligence has made it easier for brands to produce more content faster. CMOs are now confronting the less comfortable question: how much of that content is actually worth making? Dentsu Creative's ‘Making It Real: 2026 CMO Report’ found that 76% of CMOs worry they are producing more content for less impact or visibility, while 74% agree that more assets do not necessarily mean greater impact. The findings come from a survey of 1,950 senior marketing decision-makers across 14 markets, including India. The concern is emerging even as demand for content continues to rise. As many as 81% of CMOs believe they will need to produce “far more” content going forward, while 71% say they know more assets will be required but do not know how to balance their cost against the return they generate. A year ago, much of the discussion was around how quickly and cheaply generative AI could create assets. In 2025, 89% of CMOs agreed GenAI would make a major difference to their ability to produce assets quickly and cheaply. That has fallen to 82% in 2026. Similarly, the proportion expecting GenAI to make it significantly easier to in-house marketing work has dropped from 90% to 83%. Speed has improved; savings haven't followed at the same pace The report found that 71% of CMOs say AI is improving speed to market, but 70% say they have not yet seen major cost efficiencies, even while acknowledging the adoption curve involved with new technologies. Another 74% are considering dropping some of the tools they currently pay for and looking for alternatives better suited to their brands. The result is that marketers are beginning to move away from treating output volume or cost per asset as the main measures of success. Dentsu found that 86% of CMOs believe smart agencies will need to move quickly beyond using AI for efficiency and use it instead to drive impact and effectiveness. Three-fourths of marketers said they are less concerned about cost reduction than using AI to enable greater personalisation and responsiveness, while 74% said freeing up time to become more culturally relevant and customer-centric is becoming more important. AI savings are going back into craft The assumption that AI efficiency will simply reduce marketing budgets is also being challenged. 82% of CMOs said AI-driven production efficiencies are allowing them to reinvest budget in upfront craft and creativity, while 80% said the savings are helping them fund high-touch, real-world experiences. Elsewhere in the report, 80% of CMOs said that without compelling craft upfront, AI-enabled production risks delivering “more sameness, in more places, more quickly.” More content also needs more media The production boom is creating another problem: brands may be generating more assets than they can properly support with media. The report cites research from WARC and CreativeX showing that while creative output has increased by an average of 30%, average media spend per asset has fallen by 15%. More than 90% of assets received less than $10,000 in media support. Dentsu also found that 77% of CMOs believe siloed agency structures separating creative, media, data and production mean content is not working as hard as it should. Another 75% said they face a disconnect between media and production: they may have the data needed to personalise an experience, but do not necessarily have the right content assets available to act on it. The AI content challenge for CMOs is therefore moving beyond whether more can be produced. As production becomes cheaper and faster, the harder questions are which assets deserve to exist, which deserve media investment and whether the additional volume is creating any additional impact.