Survey: Content marketers see benefits in rise of AI
The explosion of artificial intelligence-powered search engines is leading organizations to double down on marketing efforts.
According to a new survey of marketing professionals from B2B service provider platform Clutch and answer engine optimization platform Conductor, 87% plan to increase content marketing budgets in 2026, while more than half (55%) expect to increase content output.
One-in-four marketers now say large language models (LLMs), or AI systems capable of understanding language to perform tasks, are the primary audience for the majority of their content. This comes as search engine optimization has expanded to include AI search and LLM visibility.
Eight-in-10 (81%) content marketers feel positive about the state of content marketing in the era of LLMs, while more than two-thirds (67%) view LLMs as more of an opportunity than a risk for their content strategy.
“These findings reflect a clear inflection point for content marketing,” said Clutch CEO Mike Beares. “Teams understand that AI search is reshaping how buyers discover information, and they’re responding by investing in higher-quality, more authoritative content that can earn trust, citations and visibility across emerging discovery surfaces.”
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Currently, three-quarters (75%) of marketing professionals already use AI-powered tools as part of their standard content creation workflow. The survey found that proprietary research and original reports rank as the top written content priority for increasing visibility in AI-generated answers.
“The most striking shift is how quickly LLMs have become a first-class audience for content teams,” said Seth Besmertnik, CEO and co-founder of Conductor. “Just one to two years into AI search, nearly a quarter of marketers say LLMs are now their primary content audience. That’s a massive change in a short amount of time, and it reinforces why original, trustworthy content is becoming the currency of visibility in AI-generated answers.”
The findings of Clutch and Conductor’s report are based on a January 2026 survey of more than 450 marketing professionals responsible for producing content, spanning organizations from growing SMBs to large enterprises. Respondents represent a wide range of seniority levels, from hands-on practitioners to directors and C-suite leaders.
