• by Ray Schultz , Columnist, Yesterday

Many email marketers are using artificial intelligence to streamline their workflows and generate content. But not all industry sectors are moving at the same pace, judging by The State Of Email—2026 Report, a study by Litmus From Validity.  

“Tech companies and agencies lead as advanced adopters, while health and professional services lag behind—likely facing regulatory constraints and organizational complexity that AI alone can’t solve,” the study notes.  

These are the different levels of adoption:  

• Moderate adoption: AI is regularly used in multiple areas of email strategy—34% 
• Advanced adoption:AI is deeply integrated into our email marketing workflows and decision making—28% 
• Early Adoption: We are using AI for limited or pilot use cases—11%
• No current use: We are not using AI for email marketing at this time—5%

These are the most impactful uses of AI: 

• Generative AI tools (e.g. for copy, image generation)—22%
• Personalizing email content (e.g. subject lines, body text)—15%
• Analyzing campaign performance to identify trends and insights—15%
• Improving deliverability through predictive or automated adjustments—12% 
• Segmenting audiences based on behavior and preferences—9%
• Analyzing campaign performance to identify trends and insights—7%
• Improving deliverability through predictive or automated adjustments—7%
• Segmenting audiences based on behavior and preferences—6%  

One thing is for sure: AI is speeding up email creation. “Advanced AI adopters are 28% more likely than early-stage teams to deploy emails in under a day.” They are using AI not only for the flashy stuff, but for more mundane tasks like image resizing and link-checking. 

Overall, 76% of marketers now produce and send marketing emails within three days. 

All that said, how are email senders doing these days? They report the following current returns on investment: 

• Between 20.1 and 36.1—37%
• Between 36.1 and 45.1—25% 
• I’m unsure—13%
• Between 10.1 and 20.1—13%
• More than 45.1—8%
• Between 1.1 and 10.1—3%

What produces the most engagement and/or ROI for companies? They list: 

• Promotional emails (e.g. sales, discounts)—38%
• Customer engagement emails (e.g. product education, ews)—17%
• Newsletter emails (e.g. welcome messages, getting-started guides)—11%
• Event-related emails (e.g. event invitations, reminders, follow-up)—9%
• Re-engagement emails (e.g., win-back campaigns, inactive user outreach)—7%
• Transactional emails (e.g., order confirmations, shipping updates)—4%

Litmus from Validity surveyed 502 marketing professionals in the U.S., U.K., Australia and New Zealand from Nov. 19 to Dec. 17, 2025.