Companies use Artificial Intelligence for Marketing but are not growing with it, according to LLYC
-81% of companies are in a tactical phase where AI improves efficiency but doesn’t transform the business model.
-The average market maturity score is 2.25 out of 5, far from using AI as a true strategic pivot.
Artificial intelligence is no longer just a promise, but the report “Agentic Supremacy: The AI Maturity Matrix to Transform Marketing and Business,” prepared by LLYC based on responses from 60 CMOs and Communications Directors in Spain, issues a warning: marketing and communications departments are using AI, but they are not growing because of it. The average maturity score is only 2.25 out of 5, trapped in what the study defines as the “paradox zone”: lots of tools, but little impact.
The document, prepared in collaboration with AMKT and the Barcelona Marketing Club, and which we at Reason.Why have had exclusive access to, explores aspects such as the current state of the Spanish market in this area, what the so-called Maturity Matrix measures, where companies are getting stuck, which sectors are ahead of the curve, and why the coming “agentic era” could leave brands that don’t organize their data and governance in time behind.
From “Doing AI” to “Being AI”: The Maturity Paradox
According to the report, most marketing and communications teams already use generative artificial intelligence in their daily work to write copy, produce creative pieces more quickly, automate part of the media planning, and accelerate dashboard generation.
However, when the degree of AI integration in processes, data, talent, and governance is systematically measured, the picture changes. The average maturity score is 2.25 out of 5, and 81% of organizations are concentrated between 1.6 and 2.5 points—that is, at levels where AI improves tactical efficiency but does not transform the operating model. None of the companies analyzed yet exceed 3.5, where AI becomes a clear driver of growth.
Thus, companies use AI, but they have not redesigned their operating model. And the impasse isn’t technological, LLYC insists, but rather organizational and governance-related: people learn faster than the structures that should be absorbing that learning.
Jesús Moradillo, Partner and Managing Director of Marketing Strategy at LLYC, puts it this way: «Companies are doing AI, but very few are being AI. Most have remained stuck in the tactical efficiency phase, generating content and dashboards faster, but without redesigning their operating model to achieve the returns that AI-First companies are getting.» This impasse, he adds, is also evident in roles: «We’ve gone from curious users secretly using AI to save personal time, to teams that should be supervising autonomous systems and orchestrating human-agent collaboration. That transition hasn’t happened yet in most organizations.»
The Maturity Matrix: Six Dimensions and One Frontier
The report articulates this diagnosis through an AI Maturity Matrix for marketing and communication, which crosses five levels of evolution with six major operational dimensions and a seventh strategic frontier, linked to agent commerce.
The five levels range from exploratory use to an AI-First stage, where AI is embedded in processes and decisions. The study identifies the main hurdle as the transition from Level 2 (tactical) to Level 3 (integrated): the leap where companies must move from isolated projects to an organizational strategy with connected data, active governance, and clearly defined human-agent roles.
“The real leap is not adding more use cases, but changing the operating system: how decisions are made, what data feeds them, and who is responsible for orchestrating humans and agents,” summarizes Moradillo.
Source: www.reasonwhy.es
