Global and regional AI adoption: What it means for customer engagement
2026-03-07 22:21 Diff
https://www.braze.com/resources/articles/global-and-regional-ai-adoption

To meet rising consumer expectations, marketers need to connect with their customers in more personalized and relevant ways. But many brands find it tough to know what customers truly want because they simply lack the time and resources to find out.

The Braze Global Customer Engagement Review 2025 polled 2,300 marketing leaders from 18 countries and found that:

Without data or testing, personalizing experiences at scale is guesswork. With limited time, teams, or testing capacity, many engagement strategies are still based more on instinct than insights.

This is where AI comes into play. By automating key tasks—from testing creative variations to optimizing tone of voice—AI empowers marketers to do more, while deepening their understanding of customer behavior and sentiment. Moreover, AI helps personalize experiences for customers on a larger scale, ensuring that each individual receives tailored content and offers that resonate with their unique preferences and needs.

Now, let’s delve into the regional data to see how and where AI is reshaping marketers’ strategies around the globe.

Powering high performance: AI in customer engagement

Across the board, AI is proving to be a catalyst for smarter customer engagement. From automating tone of voice adjustments, predicting customer behavior, and choosing the most effective experience for each individual, AI tools are embedding themselves into marketing workflows.

Globally:

  • 39% of survey respondents employ AI-powered analytics to analyze customer data in more advanced ways
  • 38% use AI-powered tools to understand customer sentiment
  • 36% use AI to adjust the tone of their messages to match each recipient

Of course, these are just some of the uses of AI that we surveyed marketers about. Others include using generative AI to rapidly create images and copy for testing variants, using AI to conduct quality assurance on campaign collateral, and personalizing content based on real-time user behavior.

And it’s making a difference. Our data shows that surveyed high-maturity brands in customer engagement are:

  • 30% more likely to use predictive analytics
  • 15% more likely to use generative AI for image creation
  • 15% more likely to integrate AI into quality assurance workflows

This proves that AI isn't just a tool to make workflows more efficient. It’s a competitive differentiator for brands that want to make meaningful customer connections at scale.

AI for customer engagement: Regional adoption differences

Our global data reveals a subtle variation in how different regions use AI to power their marketing strategies.

AI-powered analytics solutions are the most widely adopted, with 39% of surveyed global marketers using them to analyze customer data, enabling them to spot behavioral trends and predict customer actions. This allows for smarter segmentation, better budget allocation, and more timely personalization. North America and LATAM lead in adoption, both at 42%.

AI-informed data collection tools come next, helping marketers find patterns and combinations in data sets to understand customer sentiment and preferences. Here, EMEA leads, with 39% adoption, while LATAM lags, with 37%. The regional differences in adoption rates may be attributed to several factors. In EMEA, there is often a greater emphasis on data-driven marketing strategies and advanced technology adoption, driven by a competitive landscape that prioritizes customer insights. Conversely, LATAM may face challenges such as varying levels of technological infrastructure, differing market maturity, and potential resource constraints that can hinder the widespread implementation of AI tools.

Tone adjustment tools are utilized by 36% of surveyed global marketers to maintain a consistent brand voice across different formats and audiences. However, LATAM trails behind at 31%, possibly due to the complexities of tailoring messaging within its highly diverse linguistic and cultural contexts. These tools not only help to drive consistency but also enable marketers to incorporate brand guidelines into AI-generated copy, aligning all communications with the brand's identity while effectively resonating with various audiences.

Embedding AI for customer engagement: Tech maturity matters

AI success isn’t as easy as ‘adopt it and watch it work’. To deliver real impact, it needs a strong strategy, systems, and software to support it. The maturity of the ecosystem around it matters; otherwise, it’s like having a high-performance car with no road to drive it on. However, our research shows that half of the organizations are at the most basic level of tooling and execution.

When brands lack the martech foundations they need, it impacts data completeness and currency, automation opportunities, and cross-channel consistency. This ultimately undermines speed to market, relevance, and the success of campaigns.

In this context, it is no surprise that North America is a strong adopter of AI analytics. Our survey found this region’s respondents to have the highest tooling maturity (with 30% at Ace level) and execution maturity (28% at Ace level).

However, it is perhaps more surprising to see the above-average uptake of AI analytics in LATAM, given that the region lags in both tooling and execution maturity (with 24% and 18% of survey respondents at ace level, respectively). Could this be a pragmatic response to the fact that 23% of surveyed LATAM brands are expecting to lose money from their budget in the next 12 months, more than double the 11% global average?

If AI adoption is a reaction to the need to ‘do more with less,’ these budget cuts could actually accelerate innovation and enable brands to unlock efficiencies, scale insights, and support leaner operations. We’ll be watching LATAM with interest.

Final thoughts: Expanding customer engagement with AI

The need to ‘do more with less’ is something marketers are all tired of hearing. But it’s the reality for teams looking to scale customer engagement without significantly more resources or budget. AI not only helps save time by automating tasks, but it also uncovers valuable insights that are often difficult to identify manually. These insights enable marketers to personalize experiences at a scale that would be challenging to achieve with human effort alone, allowing for more effective and targeted engagement with customers.

Whether that looks like:

  • Expanding from one channel to three
  • Tailoring broad audiences into more nuanced segments and increasing campaign numbers
  • Growing reach, relevance, and deliverability to millions of customers

AI can help bridge that gap. Brands that are leaning in are already seeing results: not just greater efficiency but deeper insights and stronger connections with customers.

Download the full Braze Global Customer Engagement Review 2025 to explore how leading brands are making AI work for them, and how you can too.