Canva report: almost all marketers utilize AI, yet consumers still seek a human connection.

      **TL;DR** Canva's State of Marketing and AI Report 2026 reveals that 97% of marketing leaders utilize AI daily and 99% plan to boost their spending, yet 78% of consumers still favor human-created advertisements, with 87% asserting that effective advertising requires human involvement. References to “AI slop” have surged ninefold, and consumers express a desire for transparency (52%), data security (53%), and the option to opt out (37%). The report coincides with Canva's enhanced partnership with Anthropic, integrating its design engine into Claude for Small Business.

      Almost all marketers worldwide are leveraging AI for their creative processes. However, a significant portion of consumers still wishes these creations were made by humans. This disconnect between industry enthusiasm and consumer skepticism is the primary finding of Canva’s 2026 State of Marketing and AI report, indicating that the more challenging issue in AI-driven marketing lies in gaining permission, not in production.

      The statistics are striking on both sides. Ninety-seven percent of surveyed marketing leaders report using AI in their daily creative tasks, and 99% intend to increase their investments in AI this year. Conversely, 78% of consumers prefer advertisements created by people, even if AI could potentially create better ones, while 87% feel that the best advertising necessitates a human touch. This report, derived from surveys of 1,415 marketing leaders in organizations with over 500 employees and 3,547 consumers across seven countries, highlights an industry that has adopted a technology at a pace that outstrips its audience's trust in it.

      **The Disclosure Question**

      This trust gap is very real. Consumers are becoming more clear about what would help bridge it. When asked what would increase their comfort with AI in advertising, 53% cited data protection, 52% noted a need for AI usage disclosure, while 39% sought guarantees that AI would not take away jobs, and 37% wanted the choice to fully opt out of AI-generated advertisements. The call for transparency is intensified by a growing realization that the boundary between human-made and machine-made content is blurring: 70% of consumers anticipate that it will soon be impossible to discern if an advertisement was generated by AI without disclosure, and 56% expect this change within two to five years.

      This finding reframes the discussion that has largely focused on capabilities. Over the past 18 months, marketing teams have been predominantly inquiring about what AI can accomplish. The report indicates that audiences are instead questioning whether they are informed about AI's involvement.

      **The Slop Problem**

      The concern regarding quality has been labeled. References to “AI slop,” which refers to low-quality, easily recognizable machine-generated content, have increased ninefold in media monitoring data according to the report. Forty-one percent of marketing leaders acknowledge it as a significant challenge. Seven out of ten consumers believe that AI-generated advertisements feel incomplete, suggesting that their response may stem from a detected gap between produced content and generated content, rather than a rejection of AI itself.

      The paradox is that the same technology creating the slop issue remains the most viable path to resolving it at scale. AI allows for the effortless production of mediocre creative. It also enables personalization, testing, and iteration at speeds unmatched by human teams. The difference in outcomes lies not in the technology but in the standards applied, indicating a management issue disguised as an engineering challenge.

      **What Marketers Are Actually Doing**

      The report indicates that 68% of marketing leaders believe AI has led to an increase in marketing-influenced business decisions, implying that the technology is not only boosting production but also transforming how teams allocate resources and evaluate impact. The trajectory of investment has surged: from 94% of marketers investing in AI in the 2025 survey to 97% actively using it daily this year, with nearly universal plans to spend more.

      The publication timing of the report is significant. Canva released it on the same day it announced an expanded partnership with Anthropic, integrating its design engine into Claude for Small Business—a platform that enables small business owners to create on-brand marketing campaigns using Claude’s AI assistant. This integration connects to each user's Canva Brand Kit, ensuring that generated content adheres to the appropriate fonts, colors, and visual identity. It serves as the infrastructure for the kind of AI-assisted creative work discussed in the report, aimed at the millions of small businesses without dedicated marketing teams.

      The Canva-Anthropic collaboration had already seen usage quadruple in March 2026 following a January enhancement that made Claude the first AI assistant capable of producing on-brand designs with a simple prompt. The new integration broadens this functionality to include various business tools such as QuickBooks, PayPal, HubSpot, DocuSign, and Google Workspace.

      **The Trust Economy**

      What the Canva report captures, perhaps unintentionally, is the emergence of trust as a competitive factor in marketing—not between brands and consumers (an established dynamic),