Most marketers believe AI is enlarging their carbon footprint. Far fewer have checked. A report from climate technology and advisory firm 51toCarbonZero finds that 88% of surveyed senior marketing leaders see AI increasing their emissions and 42% believe the increase is significant — while only 36% have comprehensively measured the environmental effects of their AI investments, and 8% have not measured at all.
The survey, conducted with Censuswide in June 2026 for the firm’s “Zeroed In: The Brand Marketing Pulse” benchmark, covered 100 U.S. and 100 U.K. marketing leaders at senior management or C-suite level across multiple sectors. Regional sentiment diverged: 51% of U.S. marketers perceive a significant uptick in emissions from AI, against 32% in the U.K.
What makes the gap awkward is that it sits inside an otherwise improving picture. Budget concerns around sustainability have dropped sharply — just 17% of marketers cite it as a worry, down 20 percentage points from 2025 — and 85% report moderate to significant progress cutting emissions. Fewer than a quarter see internal alignment as a key challenge. The measurement gap is not a resourcing problem, which is why 51toCarbonZero frames it as a governance one.
“Businesses cannot effectively reduce what they are not measuring — and there is still work to do to build greater visibility around AI’s environmental impact,” said co-founder and CEO Richard Davis.
Emissions are not the only line moving. Eighty-eight percent of respondents say AI is pushing up operational costs, and 35% say substantially — a reminder that the data centers behind the tools carry a bill in two currencies. The findings arrive as early AI enthusiasm cools amid public criticism and sharper investor skepticism, and as some AI platforms turn to marketing to address consumer unease: Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg recently shared a video putting a human-led spin on the technology, with paid media behind it, according to Adweek.
Read more at Marketing Dive.