Emplifi Report: 87% Say AI Boosts Productivity, but Social ROI Remains Hard to Prove

AI is helping social media marketing teams work faster, but many still struggle to connect that productivity to measurable business results. In its State of Social Media Marketing 2027 report, Emplifi found that 87% of surveyed marketers say AI has improved team productivity, while only 48% are confident they can demonstrate social media return on investment (ROI) to leadership using clear attribution and data.

AI productivity gains outpace measurement capabilities

The findings highlight a gap between the operational benefits of AI and marketers’ ability to prove the commercial value of social media. Although 87% report productivity improvements, just 38% describe the increase as significant. For most organizations, AI appears to be delivering incremental gains rather than transforming marketing operations.

Adoption is concentrated in content and analytical tasks. Caption and copywriting leads at 72%, followed by ideation at 70%. Image generation and reporting and analytics are each used by 64% of respondents. Community management remains a less developed application: 60% say they are not yet using AI for that function.

The measurement challenge is reflected in the metrics marketers prioritize. Reach and impressions are among the most frequently ranked KPIs, cited by 58% of respondents. Fewer than one in three place social-attributed revenue among their top three metrics. Attribution is the most commonly reported obstacle to measuring social performance.

That gap matters as social media becomes more closely connected to customer acquisition, commerce and customer experience. Productivity improvements may help teams publish and analyze more content, but they do not automatically establish how social activity contributes to revenue.

AI governance and workload pressures remain

The survey also points to governance challenges as AI adoption spreads. More than half of respondents say they use AI tools that have not been approved by their company at least some of the time, compared with 42% in the previous year's survey.

Only 37% say their organization has a fully defined AI policy for marketing, while another 41% report partial guidelines. Brand safety and content quality are the leading barriers to broader adoption, cited by 26%. Skills and training gaps follow at 19%, with integration into existing tools at 16%.

Team capacity presents another concern. Although 54% say their social teams have grown over the past year, 86% report an increase in content and campaign volume. Four in five describe their workload as manageable, but the share experiencing burnout very often has increased to 24%, from 17% in the previous report.

Marketers identified smarter automation (21%) and additional headcount (20%) as leading ways to improve capacity, followed by better AI tools (18%). The findings suggest that technology investment is being considered alongside staffing and workload management.

Social search and AI visibility become priorities

Discovery is also changing. Emplifi found that 86% of marketers consider optimizing social content for search and discovery a formal priority or an issue on their radar for the next 12 months.

Nearly half, or 48%, actively monitor how their brands appear in AI tools such as ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini and Perplexity. Three in four have adapted social content to improve visibility in AI-generated results, but only slightly more than a third have a defined strategy. For around one in five organizations, AI visibility has no clear owner or established approach.

Influencer investment remains active, with 53% expecting budgets to increase over the next year. Among marketers with an influencer budget, 64% plan to raise it. However, plans to increase collaborations with virtual or AI-generated influencers have declined to 35%, from 58%.

Instagram leads planned platform investment. Reddit stands out as the only platform where the proportion planning to increase investment, at 31%, exceeds the proportion currently using it for marketing, at 28%.

Analytics and automation lead future investment plans

Looking ahead, AI tools and automation are the leading investment priority, selected by 31% of respondents. Short-form video production follows at 19%, and analytics and reporting at 15%. Three in four expect AI's role within their teams to grow over the next two years.

Emplifi CMO Claire Wilson said the next phase of social media strategy will depend less on content volume and more on turning interactions into measurable business value and better customer experiences. She also argued that teams should use time saved through AI for listening, responding and improving decision-making rather than simply increasing output.

Market Landscape

The report captures several pressures converging in social media marketing: wider AI adoption, increasing content demands, changing discovery behavior and continued difficulty attributing business outcomes to social activity.

The findings also point to a measurement problem. Teams are investing in reach and engagement while facing pressure to demonstrate revenue contribution. As AI-generated search and discovery become part of the marketing mix, organizations will need clearer ownership, governance and measurement frameworks to understand how social content influences customer journeys.

Strategic Outlook

For marketing leaders, the findings suggest that AI adoption should be evaluated against more than time saved or content produced. Connecting productivity gains to customer engagement, conversion and revenue will require stronger attribution practices and clearer performance measures.

Governance is another priority. As employees use tools outside approved systems, organizations need practical policies covering data handling, brand safety and content review. The growing focus on AI visibility also creates a need for defined ownership and repeatable monitoring.

The survey offers a snapshot of marketer sentiment rather than proof that AI directly causes improved business performance. Its year-over-year comparisons should also be treated as directional because the 2026 and 2027 survey samples differ.

Top Insights

• 87% of surveyed marketers say AI has improved productivity, but only 38% report a significant increase and 48% can confidently demonstrate social media ROI.

• Caption writing, ideation, image generation and analytics are the leading AI applications, while 60% have not adopted AI for community management.

• Only 37% of organizations have fully defined marketing AI policies, while more than half report some use of unapproved AI tools.

• 86% consider social search optimization a priority or emerging priority, but only slightly more than a third have a defined AI visibility strategy.

• AI tools and automation lead planned marketing investments, even as frequent burnout among social teams has risen to 24%.

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