Artificial intelligence is changing marketing in the Netherlands, but more gradually than the hype suggests. In 2023, 8% of Dutch companies used AI; in 2025 it was 17%, and marketing or sales is the most common purpose. In this report we map out the state of AI marketing in the Netherlands: adoption, measurable impact, the tools in use and the barriers companies face. Every figure links to its source, and international data is labeled as such.
1. AI adoption in the Netherlands
AI use by Dutch companies has roughly doubled in two years. According to Statistics Netherlands (CBS), 17% of companies with two or more employees used AI in 2025 (preliminary figure), up from 13% in 2024 and 8% in 2023. Among companies with ten or more employees the share is 33% (2024: 23%). Source: CBS, 2025, CBS Digitalisation and knowledge economy, 2025
In the European comparison the Netherlands scores high. Eurostat puts AI use by Dutch companies with 10+ employees at 33.21% in 2025, against an EU average of 19.95%: sixth place in the EU (Denmark leads with 42.03%). Eurostat flags a break in the Dutch series in 2025, so the jump from 23.06% in 2024 is not pure growth. Specifically for marketing: 12.34% of Dutch companies use AI for marketing or sales (2024: 8.86%), fourth in the EU behind Finland (15.81%), Sweden (14.6%) and Austria (13.33%). The EU average is 6.92%. Source: Eurostat, 2025
Note: these are company statistics, not a survey among marketers. We found no public, verifiable survey of Dutch marketers. Where this report uses marketer surveys (HubSpot, Salesforce, Gartner), they are international.
Adoption by company size
Adoption rises steeply with company size. Large companies lead the way, and the mid-market is catching up fastest:
AI use by company size (CBS, 2025, preliminary)
Among companies with 50 to 250 employees, AI use rose from 20% in 2023 to 45% in 2025. The smallest companies (2 to 10 employees) doubled from 7% to 14%, but still lag far behind. Source: CBS, 2025
Most popular AI tools
ChatGPT dominates, but Google Gemini has become a clear number two. Statcounter measures which AI chatbots send visitors to websites. In the Netherlands in October 2026:
AI chatbot share of referral traffic, Netherlands, October 2026
This is the share of website traffic referred by chatbots, not the share of users (Statcounter, 2026). On the user side: 57% of Dutch adults have used an AI chatbot at some point (18 to 25 year olds: 90.4%; 65 and over: 20.6%) (CBS, 2026). Eurostat counts 44.7% of Dutch people aged 16 to 74 who used generative AI tools in 2025, against 32.66% in the EU; 26.56% did so for work, against 15.36% in the EU (Eurostat, 2025).
AI usage by marketing function
There is no Dutch breakdown per marketing discipline. HubSpot’s international survey shows where marketers use AI most. Content creation leads:
| Task | Uses AI extensively | Uses AI occasionally |
|---|---|---|
| Content creation | 42.5% | 38% |
| Media creation (images, video) | 37.2% | 37.7% |
| Administrative task automation | 35.6% | 40.5% |
| Learning and skill development | 34.6% | 40.1% |
| Advertising automation and optimization | 34.1% | 36.5% |
| Brainstorming and ideation | 33.9% | 39.8% |
| Strategic planning and forecasting | 33.4% | 37.5% |
International survey of 1,500+ marketers. Source: HubSpot, 2026
Among Dutch companies that use AI, marketing or sales is the most common purpose: 35%, ahead of administration (32%), R&D or innovation (25%), production or service processes (18%), accounting and finance (17%), ICT security (11%) and logistics (4%). Source: CBS, 2025
AI marketing tool spend
There are no reliable public figures on what Dutch companies spend per month on AI marketing tools, so this report gives no euro amounts. The best available benchmarks are international:
- 15.3% of the marketing budget goes to AI initiatives on average (Gartner 2026 CMO Spend Survey, 401 marketing leaders in North America, the UK and Europe, January to March 2026) (Gartner, 2026)
- Marketing budgets stand at 7.8% of company revenue in 2026, up from 7.7% in 2025 (Gartner, 2026)
- AI chatbots (ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini, Claude) are the top area where marketers plan to increase spending: 37.7% (HubSpot, 2026)
2. Impact on marketing results
Adoption is one thing, impact is another. Hard, independent measurements of what AI does to ROAS or cost per lead are scarce: most figures come from marketers reporting on their own work. This is what the surveys and measurements do show.
ROI and productivity
In HubSpot’s 2026 survey, 26.5% of marketers report a significant productivity increase from AI and 66.2% a slight or moderate one. Measuring that impact is getting easier: 67.5% say they know how to measure AI’s impact, up from 48% in 2025. Source: HubSpot, 2026
We found no independent, public measurement of ROAS or cost-per-click improvements from AI for the Netherlands, so we do not give a percentage. Measure it in your own account, with a clear before and after period.
What is measurable is how AI changes search itself. Pew Research Center tracked the Google searches of 900 American adults:
Google without AI summary
Google with AI summary
Share of Google search visits, 900 U.S. adults, March 2025 (international data). 18% of all searches in the study showed an AI summary. Source: Pew Research Center, 2025
Content production: more output expected
AI mainly raises the volume of content. 83.5% of marketers say they are expected to produce more content because of AI, 35.7% much more. Teams that use AI for content creation do save time: about a third saves 10 to 14 hours a week, another third more than 15 hours, and just under a third 1 to 9 hours. Source: HubSpot, 2026
Salesforce’s 10th State of Marketing report (nearly 4,450 marketers) adds that marketers expect to save up to eight hours a week with AI agents. Source: Salesforce, 2026
Segmentation and lead quality
AI helps most when it can work with clean, connected data. 38% of marketers who use AI segment audiences by predicted behaviour, against 30% of those who do not. But only 26% are fully satisfied with how their data is unified. Source: Salesforce, 2026
For B2B lead generation this means that AI lead scoring is only as good as the CRM data behind it. Sales teams only benefit when the signals are reliable.
Campaign speed and personalization
Personalised content with AI is the top trend for marketers (48.57%), and 70.2% believe they can adapt their strategy to changes in search such as AI overviews (HubSpot, 2026). 85% say AI is reshaping their SEO strategy and 88% have started optimising for AI-generated answers (Salesforce, 2026).
Cost reduction: what the data does and does not show
Claims such as “AI cuts acquisition costs by a third” circulate widely, but we found no independent source for them, so this report does not repeat them. What is measurable: AI saves hours (see above), and 75% of marketing organisations now use AI in at least one form (Salesforce, 2026). Whether that leads to a lower cost per lead depends on how it is deployed. An AI-first agency should be able to show this with before and after figures from your own account.
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TAKE THE AI READINESS SCORE →3. AI marketing tools landscape
The AI marketing tools landscape in the Netherlands is more mature than ever in 2026. The market has evolved from a handful of generic chatbots into a diverse ecosystem of specialized tools for every marketing discipline. Here's an overview of the key categories.
Content creation
The content creation category is the most mature. ChatGPT is the most used chatbot in the Netherlands (52.64% of AI chatbot referral traffic in October 2026), followed by Google Gemini (30.79%). Claude from Anthropic has a small share (2.81%) (Statcounter, 2026), but is chosen by professional content teams for its nuance and long context window. Jasper and Writesonic are primarily used by larger marketing teams for their collaboration features and brand voice controls.
Visual & creative
Midjourney is a well-known choice for visual AI; internationally, 37.2% of marketers use AI intensively for images and video (HubSpot, 2026). DALL-E (via ChatGPT) follows, and Adobe Firefly is gaining traction among enterprise teams already embedded in the Adobe ecosystem. For AI-generated images, quality is growing exponentially—by 2026 the line between AI imagery and photography is virtually invisible.
SEO tools
Surfer SEO, Clearscope, and MarketMuse are integrating AI deeper into their platforms than ever before. Where these tools once only offered keyword suggestions, they now generate complete content briefs, analyze the top-10 results at a semantic level, and predict ranking probability. Combined with proprietary AI tools—like Searchlab's SEO audit agent—the result is a powerful SEO stack.
Advertising
Google AI (Performance Max, Smart Bidding) and Meta Advantage+ have become the standard. Internationally, 34.1% of marketers use AI intensively for advertising automation and optimization (HubSpot, 2026). The value an AI marketing agency adds isn't in turning on these features—anyone can do that—but in interpreting the data, building the strategy behind it, and integrating across channels.
Email & CRM
HubSpot AI and Mailchimp AI have integrated AI features for predictive sending, subject line optimization, and lead scoring. Salesforce Einstein offers comparable capabilities for enterprise. The real value lies in combining these with a well-structured CRM—AI can only find patterns when the data is clean.
Analytics
Google Analytics 4 has built-in AI-powered insights, anomaly detection, and predictive audiences. Looker Studio offers AI-generated dashboard summaries. The trend is clear: analytics is evolving from "what happened?" to "what's going to happen?".
The difference that matters
There's a fundamental difference between using tools and having an integrated AI stack. Most companies use AI tools as isolated islands. The winners are the organizations that connect their AI tools into one system: CRM, ads, content, analytics, and sales pipeline as an integrated whole. Learn more about building an AI marketing stack.
4. Challenges & Barriers
Despite the growth, most Dutch companies do not use AI yet. According to CBS, about three quarters of companies neither use AI nor have considered it. Companies that considered AI but do not use it give these reasons:
Reasons not to use AI, Dutch companies (CBS, 2025)
Source: CBS, 2025
1. Lack of knowledge and training (73%)
Lack of experience is by far the most cited reason among Dutch companies that considered AI but do not use it: 73% (CBS, 2025). Internationally, marketers are catching up: 68.2% say they understand how to use AI in marketing, up from 47% in 2025 (HubSpot, 2026). AI training for businesses is the most direct way to close that gap.
2. Quality control
AI-generated content is not always accurate. Hallucinations (factually incorrect information that sounds convincing) remain a real problem. 62.7% of marketers believe the industry needs more unique, human-centred content to compete with AI-generated content (HubSpot, 2026). Companies that use AI effectively have a clear review process: AI writes the first draft, human experts verify the facts, add nuance and safeguard the brand voice.
3. Data privacy (49%)
Privacy is mentioned by 49% of Dutch companies as a reason not to use AI, and legal consequences such as liability by 42% (CBS, 2025). GDPR makes companies rightly cautious about feeding customer data into AI systems. Not all AI tools offer adequate data processing agreements (DPAs) or European data processing. The solution: choose tools with EU data centers, sign DPAs, and use anonymized data wherever possible.
4. Integration
AI tools work best when connected to existing systems: CRM, email platform, advertising platforms, analytics. That integration is far from finished: only 39% of marketing teams have fully integrated AI, for 61% it is still a work in progress (Salesforce, 2026). Companies that partner with a specialized AI marketing agency solve this faster than those who try to do it in-house.
5–7. Budget, resistance, and strategy
Strategy is the real bottleneck, not budget. 70% of CMOs call becoming an AI leader a critical goal for 2026, but only 30% say their AI foundations are mature (Gartner, 2026). Among Dutch companies that considered AI, 15% do not think it is useful (CBS, 2025). Without a clear vision and change management, employees feel threatened rather than empowered by AI. Successful AI implementation therefore starts with a clear strategy and team buy-in.
5. B2B vs B2C Differences
AI marketing looks fundamentally different in B2B than in B2C. The use cases, tools, and priorities diverge significantly. Here are the key distinctions:
| Aspect | B2B | B2C |
|---|---|---|
| Primary AI focus | Lead scoring & ABM | Personalization & retargeting |
| AI use in example sectors (NL, CBS 2025) | Specialised business services 31%, ICT 54% | Trade 12%, hospitality 6% |
| Top use case | Prospect qualification | Product recommendations |
| Content type | Whitepapers, case studies | Social media, video |
| Channel priority | LinkedIn, email, SEO | Meta, TikTok, Google Shopping |
| Biggest challenge | CRM integration | Data privacy |
| ROI measurability | High (lead → deal) | Medium (attribution) |
B2B: Lead scoring and Account-Based Marketing
In B2B, AI is most powerful for identifying and qualifying leads. AI-powered lead scoring analyzes website behavior, email engagement, firmographics (company size, industry, location), and intent signals to predict which prospects are ready to buy.
Account-Based Marketing (ABM) is being transformed by AI. AI identifies ideal customer profiles based on existing customer data, finds lookalike prospects, and personalizes messaging per account. Combined with LinkedIn Ads and personalized outreach, ABM is the dominant B2B strategy in 2026.
B2C: Personalization and predictive recommendations
For B2C companies, AI marketing is all about personalization at scale. Predictive product recommendations help raise the average order value. Dynamic creative optimization automatically adapts ads per audience segment. AI-driven social media determines optimal posting times, formats, and hashtags.
Sector data shows the gap in the Netherlands: among companies with two or more employees, AI use is highest in information and communication (54%) and specialised business services (31%), and much lower in trade (12%) and hospitality (6%) (CBS, 2025).
The fundamental difference: B2B uses AI to find the right accounts, B2C uses AI to deliver the right message to the right person at the right time.
6. Trends & Predictions for 2027
Based on current developments, international publications, and our own experience with 50+ AI tools, we've identified eight trends that will shape the marketing landscape over the next 12–18 months:
AI agents become the standard
The evolution is moving from tools to agents: AI systems that independently execute tasks. No more typing prompts—agents that autonomously monitor your Google Ads, run SEO audits, and identify prospects. AI agents are the next step beyond chatbots—and they're already here. Adoption is still early, though: only 13% of marketing organisations using AI work with self-directed agents (Salesforce, 2026), and Gartner expects over 40% of agentic AI projects to be canceled by the end of 2027 (Gartner, 2025).
AI-driven search optimization
With the rise of AI assistants like Google SGE, Perplexity, and ChatGPT Search, SEO is shifting from keyword optimization to answer optimization. Companies that structure their content for AI citation gain a strategic edge. In a Pew study, users clicked a regular result in 8% of visits with an AI summary, against 15% without (Pew Research Center, 2025).
Predictive marketing goes mainstream
Instead of reacting to data, AI predicts which campaigns will perform, which leads will convert, and when customers are at risk of churning. Churn prediction, propensity modeling, and forecasting are becoming standard in every marketing dashboard.
AI-first agencies dominate the market
Agencies that have built AI into their core—not as an add-on—deliver better results at lower cost. Traditional agencies that only use AI for content generation will lose market share to specialized AI marketing agencies.
Zero-click content strategy
AI search engines deliver answers directly. The new SEO strategy isn't about clicks—it's about citations. Companies that structure their expertise so AI systems cite them as a source are building long-term brand authority.
Hyper-personalization at the individual level
From segments to individuals. AI makes it possible to personalize every website experience, email, and ad per person. With real-time data and generative AI, one-to-one marketing is finally scalable.
AI-generated video becomes affordable
While AI video was still rudimentary in 2024, AI now produces professional marketing videos at a fraction of the cost of traditional video production in 2026. By 2027, this will be accessible to every SMB.
Marketing teams get smaller but more productive
The trend is clear: teams are shrinking in size but growing in output. 73.4% of marketers see AI working alongside them to handle most of their tasks (HubSpot, 2026). The role shifts from executor to strategist and quality gatekeeper.
The common thread across all these trends: AI is shifting the marketer's role from execution to strategy. Technology takes over repetitive tasks; humans steer on vision, creativity, and quality. Companies that embrace this shift will build a significant competitive advantage in the years ahead.
7. What this means for your business
This report paints a clear picture: AI marketing is no longer a future aspiration—it's the reality of 2026. The question isn't whether to deploy AI, but how to do it effectively. Here are four concrete recommendations:
1. Start with one use case, then scale
The biggest mistake companies make is trying to change everything at once. Start with the marketing function where AI has the most impact—for most businesses, that's content creation or data analysis. Implement one tool, measure the results, and only scale up once it's working. Read our 5-step implementation guide for a structured approach.
2. Invest in training
73% of Dutch companies that considered AI but do not use it cite lack of experience (CBS, 2025). The fix is straightforward: invest in AI training for your team. Not a one-off workshop, but ongoing skill development. Prompt engineering, tool selection, quality assurance—these are skills every marketer needs in 2026.
3. Choose a partner that integrates AI, not one that merely uses it
There's a real difference between an agency that uses ChatGPT for content and an agency that has built its own AI software for marketing. The first is an efficiency hack; the second is a fundamentally different business model. Look for a partner that doesn't sell AI as a feature but has woven it into the core of their service delivery. Learn more about the ROI of AI marketing.
4. Fix your data infrastructure first
AI is only as good as the data it gets. Before you invest in advanced AI tools, make sure the basics are solid: a clean CRM, structured analytics, consistent tracking, and reliable reporting. Without good data, AI is like a Ferrari without fuel—impressive, but it won't get you anywhere.
The companies that take the right steps now are building a lead that will be nearly impossible to close in 2–3 years. AI marketing isn't a trend—it's the new standard.
