Marketers are preparing to take the next leap forward with AI. Boston Consulting Group’s annual survey of marketers found that 71% of CMOs plan to invest more than $10 million annually in generative AI over the next three years, and 83% are optimistic about the technology. Worry about the technology has fallen to 23% among CMOs, half of what it was just two years ago.

“It’s clear that GenAI has become a core part of how modern marketing teams operate,” Lauren Wiener, BCG managing director and global lead for the firm’s marketing practice, said in a release. “What separates the winners is a commitment not just to scaling the technology, but to empowering the people who use it. Those CMOs investing in tools and talent are the ones rewriting the playbook.”

So far, content creation is a top use of AI technology. More than three-quarters of CMOs are actively using AI for image generation, creating animated videos, writing copy, and translating text into multiple languages. About 30% have plans to pilot live-action-style video generation and enhancement in the near future.

Personalization is also a top use of AI-powered analytics. Half of CMOs have already deployed personalized product recommendations at scale, while more than two out of five are piloting AI tools for content performance forecasting, audience segmentation and optimization, ROI forecasts for advertising spend and demand forecasting. The top priority for investment in AI, the study found, goes back to the consumer: improving digital customer experience.

Aside from content creation and personalization, AI can help marketers dive into data and determine what works and what doesn’t, showing actual results from a campaign. International food giant Kellanova took a step in this direction when it used clean room technology to figure out if specific targeting could improve their sales of Special K in the U.K. I talked to Global Senior Director of Insights and Intelligence Louise Cotterill and Chief Growth Officer Charisse Hughes about the technology and process. An excerpt from our conversation is later in this newsletter.

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As Elon Musk leaves Washington, D.C., he plans to add a new function to social networking app X, formerly known as Twitter, part of his campaign to make it an “everything app.” XChat, an encrypted messaging feature, is set to start rolling out to X users this week, Musk said in a recent post. This update will bring X directly in competition with Meta’s WhatsApp and the encrypted messaging platform Signal. XChat will allow for file sharing, vanishing messages, and audio and visual calls made without a telephone number. The new functionality is an update to X’s Direct Messages feature, and has reportedly launched early to some premium subscribers.

Meta is making a long-desired update to its Instagram app: allowing images with 3:4 aspect ratio. For years, Instagram photos could only be squares, meaning the vast majority of photos taken on phones needed to be cropped before they could be posted on the social network, writes Forbes senior contributor Paul Monckton. Now, users can post photos just as they were taken, allowing for a fuller look at each picture. Monckton said the rollout seems to be staggered, and not all users have access to this capability yet.

There have also been reports that Instagram is coming to the iPad, which has never offered the app. Forbes senior contributor David Phelan writes that

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