TLDR: Australian marketers are bracing for a massive surge in content demand, expecting a fivefold or greater increase by 2027. This escalation is primarily fueled by the need for personalised content, hybrid customer journeys, and a shift towards video and audio formats. A recent Adobe study reveals that while marketers face significant operational challenges, many are turning to generative AI to streamline workflows and boost creativity, despite lingering concerns about quality and privacy.
Australian marketing professionals are preparing for an unprecedented surge in content demand, with new research indicating they anticipate requirements to grow by more than fivefold by 2027. This significant increase is highlighted in a study conducted by Adobe in partnership with Advanis, which surveyed over 400 marketers across Australia.
The findings reveal that Australian demand for content is among the steepest globally, ranking second only to India and on par with the United States over the past two years. Currently, 86% of Australian marketers have experienced an increase in content demand, with over half reporting a fivefold growth. Looking ahead, a substantial 63% of those surveyed expect their content needs to multiply by at least fivefold by 2027.
The primary drivers behind this escalating demand are clear: personalised content requirements, cited by 61% of respondents, the rise of hybrid customer journeys (49%), and a notable shift towards video and audio formats (42%). Marketers also face pressure from audience expectations, with 56% believing their audiences expect fresh content weekly or even several times per week.
However, this mounting demand comes with significant operational challenges. Nearly half (48%) of marketing teams admit they are struggling to keep pace. The study found that 78% of organizations generate over 1,000 brand assets annually, with 35% producing between 10,000 and 500,000 assets. Workflow bottlenecks are a major impediment, as content often undergoes three to six rounds of approvals involving more than 20 approvers. Consequently, 46% of marketers spend over 40% of their time on administrative tasks, reviews, and approvals, diverting focus from core content creation and strategic planning. Other barriers include budget shortfalls (46%), lack of speed (44%), and limited staff (31%). A staggering 83% of marketers also report lacking effective methods for measuring content performance.
To address these challenges, marketers are focusing on several key strategies: fostering closer collaboration between creative and marketing teams (43%), implementing data-driven content approaches (42%), and increasingly, leveraging generative AI (40%). The adoption of AI is already widespread, with 78% of marketing teams currently using AI to support content production and workflows, and 82% planning to expand its role in the coming year. Despite this enthusiasm, concerns persist regarding generative AI, particularly around content quality (56%) and compliance and data privacy (48%).
Duncan Egan, Vice President of Enterprise Marketing at Adobe Asia Pacific and Japan, emphasized the urgency: “Marketers are under immense pressure to deliver personalised, impactful content at speed and scale. To keep up, teams must rethink their operations, unify creative and marketing workflows, and leverage AI to accelerate ideation, production, and personalisation.” He added, “As brands embrace AI for content production, they need models that they can trust. That is why we train our Adobe Firefly models on licensed, high-quality data to ensure commercial safety. We also enable organisations to train their own custom models so they can create on-brand content a scale.”
Industry leaders are already experiencing the transformative potential of AI. Juli Anderson, Director of Brand & Creative for Australia and New Zealand and Global Head of Brand Programs at AECOM, highlighted how Adobe Express helped streamline convoluted workflows and ensure brand consistency across a global workforce. She noted that AI-powered creativity should involve “leaning into the tools, but making sure that we are using our human creativity to make the right decisions about the content that is eventually delivered.”
James Courtney-Prior, Head of Creative at Urbis, echoed this sentiment, stating, “Using AI to remove or reduce the administrative tasks, those operational things, just creates more space to be creative. On several projects, we’ve used it to generate copy really fast and get some ideas on the table.” Stefan Mitchell, Head of Video Content for News & Sport at Nine, provided a compelling example from the sports industry, where AI can cut an 80-minute NRL game into a five-minute highlight reel in minutes, a task that previously took hours. Mitchell stressed a human-centric approach: “Our philosophy towards AI is that it has to start with human and end with human.”
Also Read:
- Indian Marketers Anticipate Fivefold Surge in Content Demand by 2027, Adobe Report Reveals
- Dentsu Creative’s 2025 CMO Report: Navigating Marketing’s Future at the Nexus of AI and Human Ingenuity
This Australian study is part of a broader global examination involving 2,800 professionals from six countries, underscoring a worldwide shift as marketing leaders seek strategies and technologies to manage rapidly increasing content needs while maintaining quality, consistency, and compliance.
