AI Marketing: How To Use AI Tools for Marketing

AI marketing uses artificial intelligence tools to plan, create, and run marketing across channels. The goal is to get more out of the time and budget you already have: reaching each customer with a more relevant message, producing content faster, and handing repetitive workflows to software. 

In Intuit’s 2026 AI Impact Report, based on survey responses from more than 34,000 business owners, 43% of US businesses said AI has increased their revenue. Marketing is one of the three areas where businesses report using AI most. 

Below, learn what AI marketing is, what it looks like in practice, and how you can apply AI in marketing across seven areas.

What is AI marketing?

AI marketing applies artificial intelligence to the everyday work of marketing: deciding who to reach, with what content, and when. In Constant Contact’s Q1 2026 Small Business Now report, 54% of more than 1,500 small business owners across five countries said they’re already using AI; another 27% plan to start this year. Business owners reported using it for tasks like analyzing trends, writing content, and creating images.

Two broad AI approaches do much of this work: predictive AI and generative AI. A third approach, agentic AI, uses AI models to carry out tasks in service of a goal you set. 

Predictive AI

Predictive AI runs on discriminative machine learning models—programs trained to find patterns in large amounts of data to make predictions. In marketing, the data is customer data, like purchase history and email opens and clicks. The predictions are about customer behavior: what each person is likely to do next. Ad platforms use these predictions to choose who sees your ad, and email marketing tools use them to choose when to send a message and to whom.

Generative AI

Generative AI runs on large language models—programs trained on enormous amounts of text to produce new writing in response to a prompt—and on similar models for images and video. 

Generative AI tools produce content including product descriptions, email copy, social media posts, product photos, and videos. They can also help you access sophisticated software. Instead of learning how to use a specialized tool, you can tell a GenAI assistant what you need in plain language and let it perform the task for you.

Predictive and generative AI work together, sometimes within the same tool. In an email platform, for example, a predictive model might flag which of your customers are likely to stop buying based on historical data, while a generative model drafts the win-back email series for that group. 

Agentic AI

Agentic AI uses AI models to plan and carry out multistep tasks toward a goal you set. Instead of responding to a single prompt, the agent chooses which actions to take, uses connected tools like your ad and email accounts to take those actions, then checks the results and adjusts course. That could mean planning a campaign, dividing budget across channels, and shifting spend toward those that are working—all within limits you approve in advance. 

AI marketing tools for Shopify stores

If you run a Shopify store, a variety of AI marketing tools are available. You can also connect general-purpose AI tools like Claude, ChatGPT, and Perplexity to your store. Here’s an overview of the most accessible Shopify AI marketing functionality:

Sidekick

Sidekick is the AI assistant inside your Shopify admin, built to handle everyday marketing tasks like building customer segments, setting up discounts, writing product descriptions, generating images, and drafting email campaigns. Write a request in plain language, like “Create a segment of customers who spent more than $150 in the past year,” and Sidekick builds the segment from your customer information. 

Tinker

Built on models from providers like OpenAI, Google, and Anthropic, Tinker is a free mobile app from Shopify that brings together more than 100 AI tools. 

Each tool handles a specific job. For example, Product Studio Shot turns a product photo into studio-quality images, Virtual Try-on Generator shows outfits on a person from your photos, Social Media Ad Generator produces ads for social media platforms, and Email Campaign Generator drafts marketing emails. 

You pick a tool, upload a photo or describe what you need, and Tinker uses the tool to produce the asset. 

ChatGPT, Claude, and Perplexity

By connecting an AI tool to your Shopify store, you give it access to your products, orders, and customer data. Shopify offers a plug-in for ChatGPT and connectors for Claude and Perplexity. You install each one from inside the AI tool, then choose whether it can only read your store data or also make changes. You then work with that information from inside the chat with prompts like “Rewrite my five slowest-selling product descriptions in the style of my bestsellers.”

Campaign Autopilot

Campaign Autopilot uses AI to plan and run paid and organic marketing campaigns across channels. It’s managed from your Shopify admin. You set a budget and guardrails, approve what runs. Autopilot handles the rest, including creating campaigns, using your product catalogue to generate ads, allocating your budget across channels, and adjusting campaigns based on what’s working.

How to use AI in marketing

• Ad creative
• Organic content creation
• Dynamic content personalization
• Email marketing
• Product merchandising
• SEO and GEO
• Workflow automation

Here’s how AI applies to seven areas of marketing:

Ad creative

Ad creative is the copy, images, and video that make up your paid ads, and it’s an area where predictive and generative AI work together.

Generative AI tools can produce variations of an ad quickly, and predictive AI can determine which variation each person sees. For example, when you upload several versions of an ad to Meta, its Advantage+ creative system uses machine learning predictions to show each viewer the version they’re most likely to respond to, based on the audience and where the ad appears. The more variations you provide, the more the system has to choose from.

To build ad variations with generative AI, start from an ad that has already performed well and ask a chat tool to change one element at a time. For example: “Write five versions of this headline, each leading with a different product benefit.”

Sean Frank, CEO of the accessories brand Ridge, uses this approach at scale. His team feeds their best-performing ads into custom GPTs and automates the process, which produces 500 ads a day for the team to review. Roughly the top 10% of ads are strong enough for Ridge to put ad spend behind. 

“When Facebook is delivering personalized ads to different audiences based on what they like, you need volume,” Sean says on the Shopify Masters podcast.

Since generative AI tools work from the data you give them, you need that information to be clear and complete. OpenAI’s guidance recommends including reference context in your prompt. Think about the details a copywriter would ask for: what the product is made of, what sets it apart, and examples of ads that have worked well in the past.

A prompt might read: “Write three Instagram captions for our sunglasses, which are lightweight, sustainably made, and suitable for running or exercising. Match the tone of the two captions below, which are our best performers.” 

For images, upload product photos along with your prompt. An image generated from a text description alone won’t necessarily match your product. Tinker’s Product Studio Shot tool starts from a photo you upload, and its Social Media Ad Generator creates ads for social platforms. 

Organic content creation

Organic content is the marketing material you don’t pay to distribute, including blog posts, social media posts, newsletters, and product pages optimized for discovery via search engines. Generative AI can help you draft all of these content types. And as with anything you produce with AI tools, the output improves when you give the tool rich source material to work from, like existing product pages, past emails, and brand voice guidelines.

Lauren Gropper, CEO of the compostable goods brand Repurpose, gives context with custom GPTs—versions of ChatGPT you set up once with your own reference material. Her team uses these alongside standard ChatGPT to brainstorm and produce marketing assets, she says on Shopify Masters. She also had the whole company take an online course on prompting, so everyone uses their AI tools consistently.

If you’re on Shopify, Sidekick has access to your product data, so you can prompt it to draft a blog post or website copy based on your existing store. For visuals, Tinker’s Product Lifestyle Shot and Product Editorial Shot tools turn a product photo into images you can use in blog and social posts. 

Dynamic content personalization

Dynamic content personalization tailors aspects of your website to each visitor. For example, a returning customer might see a “Welcome back” message and products that complement their last order, while a first-time visitor will see your bestsellers.

AI personalization makes this possible without you having to write a rule for every scenario. Predictive models group shoppers based on what they’ve browsed and bought, then show each group the products or content most likely to interest them. 

Dynamic homepage personalization apps like Intellimize, available on the Shopify App Store, let you swap banners, hero images, and on-page content based on a shopper’s traffic source and behavior. 

Email marketing

Using AI in email marketing lets you easily tailor messaging based on store data like each customer’s order history, as well as data from email marketing services like Shopify Messaging that record which customers open and click each email you send.

Use predictive AI tools to build audience segments from that data and to audit your existing email program. For example, you can describe to Sidekick the segments you want to create with prompts like “Provide me an email list for first-time customers who ordered in the last 30 days.” You can then set up marketing automations using Shopify Messaging that send emails triggered customer actions, like abandoning a cart or signing up for your newsletter.

For the emails themselves, generative AI tools can help you with drafting. In Shopify Messaging, Sidekick helps draft and edit email copy, revise layouts and sections, swap and adjust images, and tailor versions for different customer segments.

After you’ve sent an email campaign, use AI to audit it to show which messages drive sales. For instance, Lindsey Carter, founder of the activewear brand Set Active, uses Black Crow AI, a predictive AI app for Shopify stores, to audit the brand’s email marketing. As she explains on Shopify Masters, the tool analyzes her email flows and customer segments, then identifies which ones are underperforming and which are driving revenue. 

Product merchandising

Product merchandising involves deciding which products to feature and how to organize and present them. AI can help with both sides of that work. 

On the product side, AI tools can read your sales data to see what’s selling, what’s sitting in inventory, and what customers are buying together. For instance, Sidekick or Claude can answer questions based on your store’s order history, like “Which products are frequently purchased together?” and “Which products sold fewer units in the past 90 days compared to the 90 days before?”

On the presentation side, you might use an app like the AI Product Bundle Builder to pair a slower-selling product with a product it’s often bought alongside.

SEO and GEO

Search engine optimization (SEO) is the practice of making your store easy for search engines to find and rank. Generative engine optimization (GEO) is the equivalent for search via AI tools like ChatGPT, Google AI Mode, Gemini, and Perplexity. When a shopper asks ChatGPT or Gemini for the best sustainable yoga mat under $80, the model assembles an answer from product details and reviews across the web. GEO is how you make sure your store is part of that answer.

SEO and GEO both depend on complete, accurate product information. To optimize your store for AI search, give AI systems the information they need to accurately interpret your catalog: detailed product specifications, comparisons with similar products (like how your product’s dimensions or materials differ from others), and structured data (product details formatted in a standard way that software can read). 

Shoppers may also have questions about your brand or your store that go beyond specific product details—like whether you ship internationally or how returns work. Giving AI assistants accurate answers to those questions is also part of GEO. 

Shopify Knowledge Base, a free app, generates FAQs from your store’s settings and policies. You can also add custom answers to other questions shoppers commonly ask. These FAQs don’t appear on your storefront. AI platforms use them as a source when shoppers ask about your store, and the app shows you which questions were asked—and through which AI shopping agent. 

Workflow automation

Workflow automation means letting software run the repetitive parts of marketing such as scheduling campaigns, sending follow-ups, and reporting on results. Traditional marketing automation is rule-based: You define a trigger and an action (“If a customer abandons a cart, send this email”), and the software runs that rule every time. Shopify Flow is the tool for this kind of automation on Shopify. 

Sidekick adds generative AI to the setup: In the Flow app, you describe the automation you want, such as “When a shopper spends more than $300, tag them as a VIP and email me.” Sidekick drafts the trigger, conditions, and actions. These workflows stay inactive until you review and turn them on. After that point, Flow runs them like any other rule.

Campaign Autopilot uses AI to plan and run marketing on your behalf. You set a monthly budget, connect your ad and email channels (like Shopify Messaging, Shop Campaigns, and Meta ads), and choose how much control you want—from approving every action to letting Autopilot run on its own. 

Autopilot then analyzes your products, customers, and sales data. It also proposes campaigns and email automations, distributes your ad budget across channels, and adjusts based on performance. You can reject a recommendation, change the budget, or pause at any point, and you can ask Sidekick to summarize what Autopilot is doing and why it chose a given tactic.