The report, developed in conjunction with retail tech firm Voyado, says retailers expect AI to deliver meaningful impact within the next 18 months, reflecting growing confidence in experimentation, while clear and scalable return on investment from AI is expected in two years.
It comes as around a third (32%) of retail marketing and ecommerce tasks are currently exposed to being supported, augmented or partially automated by AI, fundamentally changing how work is carried out across functions such as personalisation, analytics, campaign execution and product discovery.
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Data and analytics functions are among the most immediately exposed areas, given AI’s strength in pattern recognition, forecasting and optimisation. Personalisation and customer experience execution also show high levels of exposure, as retailers seek to deliver more relevant, real-time engagement across channels.
While brand and creative activities show lower levels of direct automation, they still represent a significant share of exposed spend due to their scale within overall marketing budgets.
The research was conducted across four key markets (Benelux, DACH, Nordics and the UK), and shows retailers are ultimately on a journey to integrate AI into marketing and ecommerce, with progress shaped by data infrastructure, internal skills and availability of tools such as AI agents to autonomously perform tasks.
Almost all (95%) retailers have trialled AI tools in marketing and typically began experimenting with generative tools and large language models in 2023.
But beyond experimentation, around one in four retailers remain in the exploration or pilot scaling phases. At these stages, these organisations are still learning what AI can do, often constrained by data quality, skills or uncertainty around governance.
By contrast, almost half of retailers (45.3%) have reached an operational stage, where AI is embedded into multiple workflows and begins to influence how marketing and ecommerce teams work day-to-day.
A further one in four retailers report that AI is embedded at a strategic level, shaping planning, prioritisation and execution across functions rather than isolated use cases.
Despite this, only 5% of retailers say AI is currently delivering clear, scalable return on investment. However, the majority expect AI to begin delivering meaningful commercial impact within the next 12 to 18 months, with clearer returns anticipated around the two-year mark.
That timing creates a narrowing window for action. Retailers believe that delaying AI investment and capability-building beyond the next two years would risk falling behind competitors, as AI moves from experimentation to operational necessity.
While AI tools and platforms are available, skills, resistance and data compliance concerns constrain progress for the majority of UK retailers surveyed. Cultural hesitation and governance concerns are barriers for three quarters of UK retailers, while two thirds cite a lack of internal expertise as a barrier to deploying AI effectively in marketing and ecommerce.
Felix Kruth, chief product officer at Voyado, said: “What’s most exciting is that we’re still very early in the journey, and the AI we’re using today is likely the least impressive version we’ll ever see. This is still young technology. Generative AI has already delivered significant efficiency gains, but it’s agentic AI, built on the right data foundations, that will prove real commercial value.
“In the race to demonstrate AI progress, it is easy to focus on what is visible: new interfaces, chatbots, and features. But without the right data foundation and context, the impact simply does not materialise. The real value in retail is created by AI working in the background – prioritising the right customers, optimising decisions and ensuring the right thing happens at the right moment.”
Richard Lim, CEO at Retail Economics, added: “The next two years represent an inflexion point as AI shifts from experimentation to competitive necessity. Retailers are on a journey, and while most have begun testing and deploying AI, few have reached a stage where it is delivering consistent commercial returns.
“As AI transforms retail tasks, it is reshaping how marketing and ecommerce spend is executed. The retailers that succeed will be those building the right data foundations, skills and operating models now, as AI becomes a core requirement for competing effectively in retail.”
