86% of CMOs Using Gen AI – Here’s How

The “If” is dead. Now, it’s all about how and what.

86% of law firm marketing leaders are already using Generative AI. The debate is over. It’s no longer if legal marketers will adopt AI – it’s how fast and how smart.

Most law firm marketing leaders (LFMLs) use Gen AI for immediate, practical needs. It’s become a go-to tool for getting more work done – faster, smarter, and better.

We uncovered 7 major uses as law firm marketing leaders shared their top use cases:

Document Drafting (36.36%)

Dominating the use cases by a ratio of 3:1 – LFMLs are quickly adopting Gen AI as a core tool. It plays a key role in:

• • • 1^st drafts
    • Clarity
    • Messaging
    • Removing unwanted emotionality
    • Honing tone and voice
    • Proof and polish
    • Content framing
    • Understanding unexpected responses
    • Repurposing content for different formats

Key insight: These tasks start with a known premise – you know what you need to produce, and AI helps deliver it faster and sharper.

Marketing Content (10.23%)

LFMLs use Gen AI to tackle high-value, revenue-adjacent content:

• • • Crafting pitches
    • Building proposals
    • Developing branding content and thought leadership
    • Recasting and refining firm narratives

Ideation and Creative (7.95%)

Sometimes you need to kickstart the creative engine. Gen AI helps by:

• • • Brainstorming topics
    • Exploring new audience angles
    • Finding creative approaches to issues and strategies

Analysis (7.02%)

Raw numbers mean little without insight. Gen AI is fueling new analysis and insights. Analyses include:

• • • Win/loss patterns in proposals
    • Insights into winning proposals
    • Patterns in losing proposals
    • Partner preferences and patterns in pitches and proposals

Research (6.82%)

Blending research assistant and analyst, Gen AI helps uncover:

• • • Issues facing top clients
    • Industry-specific risks and trends
    • Best practices
    • Understanding emerging issues
    • Insights into prospective clients
    • Legal marketing benchmarks and performance

 Communication (5.68%)

LFMLs use Gen AI to sharpen their communication across channels:

• • • LinkedIn comments and responses
    • Partner emails
    • Client emails
    • Department messaging

Code/Programming (4.55%)

The tech-savvy are going even further – coding custom Gen AI prompts to:

• • • Create spreadsheets
    • Build presentations
    • Design infographics
    • Boost personal productivity

The Big Picture

54.54% revolve around content – whether drafting, refining, or creating new messaging. As skills and comfort levels rise, expect even greater dominance in content creation and marketing functions.

CMOs can get more out of AI with the following recommendations:

• Share success within the department to encourage use and increase comfort
• Document your best prompts – and push/share with the department
• Always refine your prompt at least 3 times – iterations drive smarter, sharper outputs

What’s Next

Gen AI is now fully embedded in legal marketing. Soon, firms will move into client-facing applications – building private sandboxes to protect confidentiality and unleash powerful business development innovations. We already see a few aggressive law firms:

• Building proposal development platforms for pitches and proposals
• Experience databases
• More intelligent CRM

Gen AI is here. The only remaining question: who will run the smartest and fastest?