Digital Marketing
August 28, 2026
Estimated Read Time: 6 minutes
AdPipe is a creative analytics platform that uses computer vision to show why ads perform and helps teams scale what works. This article draws on AdPipe's Pulse Report 2026, a survey of marketing, creative, and agency leaders.
Time is the biggest barrier. When AdPipe surveyed marketing, creative, and agency leaders for its Pulse Report 2026, 27% named lack of time or resources to implement as their single biggest blocker, ahead of not knowing which tools are worth it (22%) and brand safety or quality concerns (19%).
The barrier isn't belief or permission. Every team AdPipe surveyed had adopted AI. What holds them back is the work it takes to set AI up properly and the difficulty of telling which parts of it are paying off.
AI needs setup before it saves time, and most teams don't budget for the setup. The Pulse Report describes it as a loop: teams want AI to free up time, and they have no time to set it up. Someone has to spend the hours first.
One respondent described the gap between how AI sounds and how it works day to day:
"I feel like the concept of AI interests executives, but for the people doing the work it's still very manual and time consuming to set up and requires a lot of oversight." Marketing individual contributor, Pulse Report 2026
The fix is to treat setup as part of the rollout cost rather than something to get to later. The Pulse Report recommends budgeting the setup hours up front and naming who owns them.
Most teams can't say what each tool proved. In AdPipe's Pulse Report 2026, 22% of leaders named not knowing which tools are worth it as their biggest blocker, and 49% weren't sure where next year's AI budget would go.
The Pulse Report offers a simple test: if you can't say what a tool proved this quarter, that's your answer. Tools that can't point to a result are hard to defend and easy to keep paying for out of habit.
Depth matters more than the number of tools. In the same survey, no team running only one or two AI use cases could prove results, while 43% of teams running seven or more could. Five tools pointed at the same task still count as one use case.
Brand safety stalls teams early. In AdPipe's Pulse Report 2026, 19% of leaders named brand safety or quality concerns as their biggest blocker, and it was the most common blocker among teams still experimenting with AI.
The Pulse Report's guidance is to write the guardrail down. A named reviewer and a short written standard unblock more work than another round of debate.
It also recommends separating draft risk from publish risk. AI touching a first draft isn't the same as AI touching your brand, and teams that treat them the same tend to slow everything down.
Want the full breakdown of what's holding teams back? Get the Pulse Report.
Yes. In AdPipe's Pulse Report 2026, teams experimenting with AI were held back most by brand safety, teams using it regularly by time, and teams with AI built into daily work by measurement. The share that can prove results rose from 8% to 46% across those stages.
Each barrier is a sign of progress as much as a problem. Teams worried about brand safety are just getting started. Teams struggling to measure impact are usually the ones using AI the most.
For more on the measurement barrier specifically, see Why Can't Marketers Prove AI Is Working?
Rarely. Leadership buy-in was the least-cited blocker in AdPipe's Pulse Report 2026, named by only 5% of leaders. For most marketing teams, the permission to use AI already exists.
That changes where the effort should go. Building a case for leadership is less urgent than finding the hours to set things up and a way to show what AI delivered.
Match the fix to the barrier. Budget setup time as part of the rollout, judge each tool by what it proved this quarter, write the brand guardrail down, and measure one recurring decision well before trying to measure everything.
Budget the setup hours. Treat instrumentation as part of the rollout cost, and name who owns it.
Audit the toolkit. If a tool can't point to a result this quarter, question whether it's earning its place.
Write the guardrail down. Name a reviewer, write a short standard, and separate first-draft use from published work.
Measure one decision. Pick one recurring call, like which creative to run, capture a rough baseline, and report the result every month.
AdPipe is a creative analytics platform that uses computer vision to show why ads perform and helps teams scale what works. It addresses the measurement barrier for creative: AdPipe reads every ad frame by frame and ties each creative choice to performance data, which gives teams a result they can point to.
That's an underused application of AI. In AdPipe's Pulse Report 2026, only 12% of teams used AI to understand why their creative performs, the least-adopted use case in the survey.
AdPipe also speaks to the brand safety barrier. Locked brand kits build logo placement, colors, required disclaimers, and tone into AdPipe, so anything a team creates in the platform starts on brand.
See what AdPipe finds in your own ads. Get your free creative insights
The figures in this article come from AdPipe's Pulse Report 2026, a survey of marketing, creative, and agency leaders completed between July 7 and August 26, 2026. Results are unweighted.
Respondents opted in to an AI survey, which likely over-represents engaged teams. The report treats single-digit differences between groups as noise. For the rest of the report's findings, see The AdPipe Pulse Report 2026: Six Findings on AI in Marketing.
What is the biggest barrier to getting value from AI in marketing?
Time. In AdPipe's Pulse Report 2026, 27% of marketing, creative, and agency leaders named lack of time or resources to implement as their single biggest blocker. Not knowing which tools are worth it came second at 22%, and brand safety concerns third at 19%.
Why is time such a big barrier to AI adoption?
AI needs setup before it saves time, and most teams don't budget for the setup. The Pulse Report recommends treating setup hours as part of the rollout cost and naming who owns them.
Is leadership buy-in a barrier to AI in marketing?
Rarely. Only 5% of leaders in AdPipe's Pulse Report 2026 named leadership buy-in as their biggest blocker, making it the least-cited barrier in the survey.
Does the biggest AI barrier change over time?
Yes. In the Pulse Report, teams experimenting with AI were held back most by brand safety concerns, teams using it regularly by time, and teams with AI in daily work by measurement.
How can marketing teams get past AI barriers?
Budget the setup hours, judge each tool by what it proved this quarter, write the brand guardrail down, and measure one recurring decision well before trying to measure everything.
What is AdPipe?
AdPipe is a creative analytics platform that uses computer vision to show why ads perform and helps teams scale what works. It reads every ad frame by frame and ties each creative choice to performance data.
September 2, 2026
