According to recent research by Section (presented in The AI Marketing Summit in January 2026), marketers generally consider themselves novices or experimenters with AI. Because AI started with obvious value to content creators and marketing technologists (with an eye to personalization and data-driven decision making), I would expect marketers to be ahead of the game, not behind. Shockingly, 44% of those surveyed said they do not understand AI’s core capabilities, even though 52% are using it at least once a week.
It is because we are in the midst of a hype cycle? Is it because business professionals don’t want to admit they are using AI (maybe lingering from their academic experience)? Are the primary uses just too pedestrian (a search replacement or a fancy spell-checker)? Is it something else? What is the barrier to moving teams to higher proficiency?
Having a compelling use case seems to create breakthroughs in organizations that are bucking the trends. The key is to get people to see the possibilities and get hands-on experience. One innovative company hosts “hackathon” style events where they identify business problems and assemble teams to build pilot solutions. To gamify the experience. Some leaders block “deep work” hours where they spend hours chatting through a problem with a GPT. Another has weekly “AI office hours” sessions where people share what they have created or discovered this week. I have shared agents that I have built for others to use in my organization. I have hosted lunch and learns where I streamed training from AI thought leaders and showed how to create an agent. This has inspired some innovation in others.
Introduction of new technologies, tools, and approaches has followed a process for generations. Change management is not a new thing. I think of the tools that PROSCI and PMI provide in this space. They start with awareness and whether an individual is personally motivated to change. This desire to change is required for successful transformation, and that desire comes before knowledge. So the popular “start with why” adage is incomplete. Facing reality is the first step. A personal reflection comes before the proof points show themselves.
Circling back to AI adoption, we can deduce that the successful exposure events that companies are creating for their employees are allowing the teams to build awareness and desire. This then motivates them to build knowledge of the tools.