AI is everywhere right now. Every week there's a new tool, a new update or someone telling us how it's completely transformed the way they work. But with so much noise around AI, it's getting harder to separate what's genuinely useful from what's just hype.
Earlier this week, our Head of Performance, Holly, and Senior Marketing Manager, Olivia, headed to Growth Summit 2026 at Manchester's Albert Hall, hosted by Six & Flow, for a day of conversations around AI, business growth and what it really takes to turn new technology into meaningful results.
With speakers from HubSpot, The Marketing Meetup and more, one message came through loud and clear: using AI and getting real value from it are two very different things.
Here are six of our biggest takeaways from the day...
One of the day's most interesting statistics came from Jon Dick, Chief Customer Officer at HubSpot. Drawing on HubSpot research involving 6,000 companies, Jon shared that while AI adoption is widespread, only 6% of businesses surveyed are seeing transformational results.
It's a striking figure, especially when you consider how much time, money, and energy businesses are investing in AI. The problem isn't necessarily a lack of technology. It's that many businesses are focused on what AI can do, rather than what they actually need it to do.
It's easy to get caught up in trying the latest tools, building AI assistants or automating tasks because we can. But are those activities helping us win more customers, improve our marketing or deliver a better experience?
Jon talked about the importance of focusing on a smaller number of high-value opportunities, particularly those that support core business goals.
Instead of asking, "How can we use more AI?", perhaps we should be asking, "Where could AI make the biggest difference?"
This was another point that really stuck with us. Many businesses are introducing AI into existing ways of working, using it to make individual tasks quicker without questioning whether the overall process could be improved.
What if the biggest opportunity isn't simply doing the same work faster? What if it's finding a better way to do it in the first place?
Take a typical marketing campaign. AI might help write an initial brief, draft some copy or pull together a performance report. All useful, of course.
The bigger opportunity might be connecting those activities. Insights from previous campaigns inform the next brief, customer data helps shape the messaging and performance results feed directly into future decisions.
It's something we're already exploring at STM AGENCY, developing our own AI-powered tools to connect campaign insights, identify trends and turn performance data into more informed recommendations for future activity.
Rather than treating AI as another tool in the process, we should be thinking about how it could help improve the process itself.
That doesn't mean every business needs a complete overhaul. In fact, a recurring theme throughout the day was the importance of starting small. Identify one workflow that's slowing your team down, understand where the problems are and explore how it could work better.
AI tools are becoming increasingly capable, but they still need something to deliver genuinely useful results: context. Jon highlighted the importance of AI understanding not just the task it's been given, but also the business, its customers and the people involved.
You could ask AI to write a sales email, and it'll probably produce something reasonably average.
Imagine if it also understood who your customer is, what they're interested in, the conversations you've already had with them and the challenges they're trying to solve.
Suddenly, that email becomes far more relevant. The more useful information AI can draw on, the better equipped it is to support decisions and deliver personalised experiences.
Tom Dunlop, CEO of Summize, explored this further, discussing why businesses need to bring together their knowledge, processes and data rather than leaving it scattered across different systems and teams.
For businesses, this is a good reminder that getting your foundations right matters. Clean data, connected systems, clearly defined processes and a shared understanding of your customers might not sound as exciting as the latest AI launch. But they're what make the technology genuinely useful.
One of the recurring themes throughout the summit was the difference between introducing AI and making it part of how a business operates.
There's a big difference between someone experimenting with a tool and an entire team using it consistently to improve their work. And getting from one to the other takes more than giving everyone access to a new platform.
People need to understand why they're using it, how it helps them and what good looks like.
HubSpot introduced its VALUE framework, which looks beyond simply giving people access to technology. It considers whether an AI use case has been validated, is being actively used, delivers lasting value, becomes part of everyday workflows and eventually helps improve how the wider business operates.
It's a useful way to think about adoption because it shifts the focus away from how many people have logged in and toward what they're achieving.
There was also an important point about ownership. If an AI tool is introduced into a business, who is responsible for making sure it works? Who checks the quality of its outputs? And who decides whether it's still delivering value six months down the line?
Without clear ownership, it's easy for tools to be introduced enthusiastically and then quietly forgotten.
Successful AI adoption isn't a one-off project. It needs ongoing attention, feedback and improvement.
Saving time is probably one of the biggest reasons businesses are turning to AI. While getting a few hours back each week is undoubtedly valuable, it shouldn't be the only measure of success.
Throughout the day, speakers challenged businesses to think more carefully about the outcomes they're trying to achieve.
For example, if AI helps marketers produce content more quickly, brilliant. But is that content performing better or reaching the right people?
And if it reduces the time spent on customer enquiries, is it actually improving customer satisfaction?
These are the questions that matter.
The conversations also touched on how AI could change the way businesses price and sell their services.
Traditionally, many service businesses have charged based on the time and resources required to deliver the work. But as AI makes certain activities faster, clients may increasingly place greater emphasis on the value and results being delivered.
It reinforces something we've always believed: clients aren't really buying the hours spent producing a campaign, website or strategy. They're investing in what that work helps their business achieve.
Time saved is a benefit. Business impact is the outcome.
With so much conversation around automation, AI agents and the future of work, it would have been easy for the day to focus entirely on technology. But one of the most reassuring themes was the continued importance of people.
AI can help us process information, spot patterns, automate repetitive tasks and work more efficiently. What it can't replace is the need for good judgement, creativity, empathy and an understanding of the people we're trying to reach.
There was also a healthy dose of realism about the pressure people feel to keep up.
The Marketing Meetup's State of Marketers 2026 report found that 34% of marketers identify keeping up with AI as a day-to-day challenge.
And with social feeds full of people sharing their latest AI breakthroughs, it's easy to feel like everyone else has figured it all out. But the reality is often quite different.
One of the examples shared during the day challenged the growing culture of what was described as AI confidence theatre, where relatively simple uses of AI are presented as revolutionary breakthroughs.
It's a reminder that we don't need to use every new tool or build something incredibly complicated to make progress. We need to be curious, willing to experiment and honest about what's working.
And importantly, we need to bring people along with us. Rather than introducing technology for the sake of it, businesses should involve their teams, understand the challenges they face and give them the confidence to explore better ways of working.
After all, the people doing the work are often best placed to identify where improvements could make the biggest difference.
If there was one message we took away from Growth Summit, it's that the conversation around AI needs to move beyond what the technology can do and towards what it should do.
That means being more selective about where we use it, making sure we've got the right foundations in place and measuring success against meaningful outcomes.
It also means recognising that AI isn't a magic fix for every business challenge. Sometimes the best place to start is by looking at the way we already work and asking what could be better.
And it's a way of thinking that closely reflects our own approach to AI and technology. We're excited about the opportunities it creates, particularly when combined with the right strategy, creativity and human insight.
For us, it's about using technology with purpose, while keeping human expertise and judgement at the heart of what we do. AI should enhance the way we think and work, not replace it.