Pablo Perez and Maxwell Minckler are leading researchers at Google with a combined 30 years of experience. Their recent research explores how marketers are adopting AI across Europe, the Middle East, and Africa.
You’re not alone.
There are countless people out there, just like you, who feel the urgency to use AI in their work. But they’re uncertain how to move ahead.
We speak to people all the time who confess they haven’t quite figured out how to harness AI and they believe their peers and competitors just ‘get it’.
Here’s a hard truth: Yes, some people ‘get it’. But most are still figuring things out.
In fact, less than one in five marketers are considered to be leaders in AI, connecting workflows and testing AI-assisted decisions and personalisation.
We just completed new research this year that pinpoints the exact mindset you need to power your AI-driven success.
We conducted one-on-one interviews with marketing leaders across Europe, who also let us examine their internal emails, pitch materials, meeting agendas, and presentations. We wanted to observe true behaviours and understand real-world AI discussions.
This work brought in language experts and business strategists to conduct 3,000 hours of analysis and review 2,500 pages of interview transcripts.
Our analysis identified three distinct mindsets in AI adoption among marketers. But only one truly drives progress. Here’s what you need to know:
Fear of Missing Out (FOMO)
As humans, we feel the urge to participate in activities that everyone is participating in, especially if they are new and popular.
Marketers with a FOMO mindset are driven to move quickly with AI, but often without a clear strategy.
We discovered this FOMO mindset when we saw language that referred to obligation, urgency, and survival. Common words used internally included: “must”, “act now”, “imperative”, “vital”, “left behind”.
Fear of Messing Up (FOMU)
We uncovered this second mindset when we saw internal language that demonstrated risk aversion. It’s a natural feeling, but it can be taken to the extreme.
Typical words we saw again and again included: “risk”, “oversight”, “safeguard”, “caution”, “mistakes”.
This second mindset encourages people to want to stick to what they know, evaluating AI choices with caution, without ever moving forward and implementing them. For example: a company might try out an AI pilot, but never scale it across the organisation.
Some organisations are caught in a ‘tug of war’ between FOMO and FOMU. They have the urge to get ahead quickly with AI, but that is tempered by a natural response to stop and review, leaving them stuck in a loop with little progress.
The winning mindset: Focus on Maximising Advantages (FOMA)
This is the winning mindset that powers top marketers and organisations.
Did you notice that the word “fear” isn’t included in this acronym?
Marketers with a focus on maximising advantages see AI as a chance to get ahead of the competition, create value through innovation, while making calculated risks and informed strategic decisions. These organisations typically take a proactive, rather than a reactive approach.
The internal language of FOMA is a vocabulary of partnership, about shared benefits, collaboration, and empowerment with the help of AI. Common words we uncovered included: “augment”, “collaborate”, “transform”, “vision”, “opportunities”, “excitement”.
These individual feelings permeate the organisation through conversations and actions. Over time, these feelings blend into a distinct organisational mindset, creating a company-wide tone for AI, reinforced by leadership narratives.
How marketers are embracing FOMA
Our research unearthed several examples of AI-leading organisations exhibiting this winning mindset. For instance:
Instead of demanding teams completely change overnight, leading marketers are seeking to use AI as a partner. One senior product manager at a French cosmetics company told us this mindset has been gamechanging:
“I feel empowered and AI is making me hopeful … I have the opportunity to go beyond my abilities to express myself in ways I couldn’t before.”
Instead of waiting for the “perfect” training, leading marketers are feeling empowered to learn by doing. This senior marketing operations manager at a software firm in Germany explains how impactful it can be:
“My boss is insanely open to using AI because he knows the value of using it in the right way … he does a lot of encouragement and then we just take it from there.”
Instead of fretting about a complete upheaval having a significant impact on how marketers work, leading marketers are taking calculated risks in order to drive meaningful AI adoption. We spoke to a product manager at a global pharmaceutical company, based in the U.K., who describes the determination needed to pioneer new methods:
“If we don’t do anything different to what has been done in the last four or five years, we probably won’t get different results.”
A positive mindset yields positive results
Mindsets matter. The way we speak about things to ourselves ultimately determines our behaviours. If we have the right mindset about AI adoption, we are more likely to capture its transformational potential.
We know that AI leaders have achieved powerful results. Globally, companies that are in the most advanced stages of AI adoption are reporting revenue growth approximately 60% higher than companies that are just starting to implement AI essentials.1
Here’s how to put this mindset into action and transform your organisation with AI:
1. Partner with AI: see it as extending your capabilities
Think about your daily tasks and bigger goals. Which are the toughest? What have you tried before, but couldn’t achieve? Look at those again and see how AI could help you deliver. Also, consider your strengths. What’s already working well, and what can be improved tenfold with AI?
2. Learn AI by doing: hands-on experimentation beats endless planning
Allocate time to practice. Try the tools! Consider setting up experimentation teams to workshop the big strategic questions. Get away from the pressure of immediate delivery deadlines or clients demanding results. And share what you learned!
3. Embrace AI uncertainty: balancing practicality with the pursuit of growth
Build a culture where trying and failing is OK. Learn from what doesn’t work, but also identify those projects that do work, and create spaces where decisions can be made to scale them. Those spaces should include people from the cross-functional team that can make the risk-reward assessment on the go.
4. Proactively add business value: making deliberate, not reactive, AI decisions
Incorporate AI into your annual planning discussions. This can serve as a powerful catalyst, helping prompt ideas on how AI can help unlock the areas that genuinely address business challenges.
5. Reimagine with AI: not just optimising what exists
What’s your business’ true competitive advantage, and how do you and your team contribute to it? Start from a blank slate and design how you would solve that challenge today, with all the capabilities on hand.
