AI: The accelerator for creativity and efficiency

In the fast-paced world of marketing, efficiency is not just a luxury—it's a necessity. As budgets tighten and resources dwindle, CMOs and senior marketers face the dual challenge of maintaining operational efficiency while not sacrificing creativity. The reality is clear: creativity cannot thrive without a solid foundation of efficiency, and both are areas where AI can be hugely beneficial.

AI agents are revolutionizing the marketing landscape, enabling teams to streamline processes, enhance decision-making, and ultimately create more impactful campaigns. AI agents are systems that perceive their environment, make decisions, and then take action autonomously to achieve a specific goal. So, by leveraging AI agents, marketers can set specific goals—such as increasing customer engagement or driving loyalty program sign-ups—and allow AI to learn from patterns in the data, to autonomously determine the best strategies to achieve those objectives. This not only frees up valuable time for creative brainstorming but also ensures that marketing efforts are data-driven and optimized.

As brands navigate the complexities of engaging consumers in a crowded marketplace, they must recognize the potential to remain creative even when working under constraints. The brands that succeed are those that transform limitations into focused, effective actions, with AI serving as a powerful ally in this journey, helping them scale and extend their own creativity.

The art of maximizing ROI

Consider Sarah, a seasoned marketer at a crossroads of creativity and fiscal responsibility. With a budget cut by 30%, she faces the daunting task of maintaining her brand’s presence in a crowded marketplace. Rather than succumbing to despair, Sarah embraces the challenge as an opportunity to sharpen her focus and fuel smarter creativity, aided by AI.

She leverages AI agents and arms them with her campaign goals and some of the creative content she has been working on, leaning on them to decide the best way to engage, and personalize for individual customers based on her creative content, campaign goals, and any specific guardrails she specified. Moreover, AI agents can analyze data, generate insights, and automate processes, allowing her creative teams to focus on brainstorming innovative ways to engage their audience, and empowering the agents to get the content in front of them in personalized and relevant ways. By crafting personalized campaigns that resonate deeply and align with her business objectives, she can ensure that every dollar spent maximizes ROI.

The key to Sarah’s success lies in understanding that by having access to the right tools, tight budgets don’t have to stifle creativity or performance. By utilizing AI to make decisions from data-driven insight marketers can create relevant campaigns that speak directly to their audience’s needs and desires. This approach not only enhances customer engagement but also fosters brand loyalty—an invaluable asset in today’s competitive landscape.

Balancing short-term and long-term initiatives

As we navigate the turbulent waters of budget brutality, it’s crucial to strike a balance between short-term wins and long-term brand building. The temptation to chase immediate results can be overwhelming, but it often leads to a hollow victory. Instead, marketers must adopt a holistic approach that nurtures the brand’s identity while delivering tangible results, with AI guiding their strategies.

Consider the case of Kayo Sports, which faced the challenge of engaging a diverse audience of sports fans with personalized content across multiple devices and channels. Rather than settling for generic customer experiences, they chose to invest in a long-term strategy that leveraged AI to create, what their team called, "Customer Cortex." By using BrazeAI Decisioning Studio™, they delivered unique, personalized experiences through a 1:1 approach, optimizing messaging, creative, channel, timing, and promotions for each subscriber.

This strategic focus not only increased customer engagement but also significantly boosted revenue—achieving a 14% increase in subscriptions in FY24, an 8% increase in average annual occupancy, and a remarkable 105% increase in cross-sells. This approach highlights the trade-offs: while short-term campaigns drive immediate engagement, the investment in personalized customer journeys strengthens long-term brand positioning. Kayo Sports successfully navigated these trade-offs, thriving in a competitive market and enhancing their brand presence and visibility.

Harnessing Braze for enhanced engagement

In this era of budget constraints, leveraging technology and automation, particularly technology enhanced with AI functionality, is essential. Enter Braze, a powerful customer engagement platform that empowers marketers to unleash the value of their creativity and translate innovative ideas into tangible outcomes. With a suite of features designed for smarter automation and real-time optimization, Braze enables brands to craft personalized experiences that are deeply relevant for their customers, driving engagement and fostering loyalty. By harnessing the power of their creativity, brands can connect with their audience in meaningful ways, ensuring their marketing efforts not only stand out but also deliver measurable results.

Imagine Sarah again, now equipped with Braze capabilities augmented by AI. She utilizes predictive segmentation tools to identify high-value customers and craft tailored messages that speak directly to their preferences and anticipate their next action. By automating sophisticated, multi-step, cross-channel journeys, she saves time and resources while ensuring that her audience receives relevant content at the right moments. This strategic use of technology not only enhances customer engagement but also maximizes ROI, allowing Sarah to stretch her budget further than she ever thought possible.

Moreover, with BrazeAI™, Sarah can experiment at any step of the customer journey. The AI-driven automation helps her predict the most relevant messages for each individual and optimizes her campaigns in real time, ensuring that every interaction is as effective as possible. This agility is crucial in a landscape where consumer preferences can shift overnight. By staying attuned to their audience’s needs, marketers can pivot their tactics, ensuring that every dollar spent is a step toward building a stronger brand.

Conclusion

Budget constraints are not the end of creativity; they are a forcing function for innovation, especially when paired with AI. By embracing data-driven strategies, balancing short-term and long-term initiatives, and harnessing the power of technology like BrazeAI™, we can navigate the challenges of budget brutality with grace and ingenuity.

And with the emergence of AI agents, they can extend marketing creativity. Agentic AI can help marketers experiment with new ideas, tailor campaigns with greater precision, and deliver personalization and relevance. After all, the ability to do more with less is not just a skill—it’s an opportunity to think about how we can be more efficient by investing in the right technology. When paired with the right technology, constraints can be the reason for brainstorming new ways to present creative ideas that drive real value. Fortune favors those who prioritize creativity, resilience, and the power of connection in all they do!

Ready to discover how data-driven strategies and cutting-edge technology like BrazeAI™ can help you navigate budget challenges with ease? Get in touch to explore how you can transform constraints into opportunities and elevate your marketing efforts!

Forward-Looking Statements

This blog post contains “forward-looking statements” within the meaning of the “safe harbor” provisions of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995, including but not limited to, statements regarding the performance of and expected benefits from Braze and its products and features. These forward-looking statements are based on the current assumptions, expectations and beliefs of Braze, and are subject to substantial risks, uncertainties and changes in circumstances that may cause actual results, performance or achievements to be materially different from any future results, performance or achievements expressed or implied by the forward-looking statements. Further information on potential factors that could affect Braze results are included in the Braze Annual Report on Form 10-Q for the fiscal quarter ended July 31, 2025, filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission on September 5, 2025, and the other public filings of Braze with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. The forward-looking statements included in this blog post represent the views of Braze only as of the date of this blog post, and Braze assumes no obligation, and does not intend to update these forward-looking statements, except as required by law.