ANA Names "Agentic AI" and "Authenticity" as 2025 Marketing Words of the Year
05/12/2025
The Association of National Advertisers (ANA) made a first this year: two Marketing Words of the Year. Agentic AI and Authenticity. One signals autonomy and speed. The other keeps brands honest.
This pairing fits 2025. AI moves from simple prompts to systems that plan, act, learn, and ship. At the same time, trust is fragile. As synthetic content blends into feeds, marketers need proof, provenance, and real human stories.
Why these two terms won
Members told ANA these words capture the tension inside every content calendar and media plan. Agentic AI changes how we build, optimize, and deliver. Authenticity keeps the work credible and worth sharing.
As one ANA leader noted, the takeaway is simple: advance with AI while protecting truth, trust, and transparency. Do both or lose ground.
What "Agentic AI" looks like in practice
- Autonomous workflows: brief intake, concepting, versioning, QA, and deployment with human-in-the-loop approvals.
- Media and ops: pacing and budget reallocation based on outcomes, not static rules.
- Lifecycle programs: triggered journeys that write, test, and refresh content without manual queues.
- Knowledge use: brand, product, and compliance policies embedded as constraints, not side docs.
What "Authenticity" requires right now
- Provenance: label AI-assisted work and attach content credentials where possible (see the open standard from the C2PA).
- Consent and data respect: clear opt-ins, clear value exchange, clear exits.
- Human fingerprints: founder POVs, creator partnerships, customer stories, and visible teams behind the brand.
- Consistency: brand voice that sounds like you, even when tools help write it.
90-day plan for marketers
- Pick one high-frequency use case for an agent pilot (e.g., ad variations, weekly email refresh, social response). Define goal, guardrails, review cadence, and a rollback plan.
- Stand up governance: policy for data sources, approvals, audit logs, and model access. Keep it simple and enforceable.
- Add provenance: implement C2PA or equivalent in your creative pipeline and label AI-assisted content in public channels.
- Publish a disclosure standard: plain language on where AI is used and how data is handled.
- Refresh brand voice and creative do/don't lists so agents and humans make work that still feels like you.
- Set a small KPI set: cost per asset, cycle time, error rate, lift in CTR/ROI, plus trust signals (brand lift, sentiment, complaints per 1,000 impressions).
- Upskill the team: short, role-based training for marketers and analysts so AI becomes a muscle, not a bottleneck. Explore practical programs like AI Certification for Marketing Specialists or browse courses by job.
Risks to manage early
- Brand drift: outputs that sound generic or off-voice. Fix with tight style guides and example libraries.
- Confabulations and bias: require source citations, run factual checks, and monitor outcomes across segments.
- IP and data leaks: separate environments for sensitive data, least-privilege access, and red-teaming.
- Disclosure gaps: unclear labeling erodes trust faster than any efficiency can save.
Signals to track
- Efficiency: time to first draft, revisions per asset, media reallocation speed, production cost per deliverable.
- Effectiveness: creative diversity vs. fatigue, conversion lift, incrementality from quicker testing.
- Trust: aided/unaided brand lift, sentiment, creator retention, unsubscribe/complaint rates, earned mentions.
Context from ANA
ANA's member vote has picked a defining term each year since 2014. The list shows where the craft has focused:
- 2024, 2023: AI
- 2022: inclusion
- 2021: diversity
- 2020: pivot
- 2019: personalisation
- 2018: brand purpose
- 2017: artificial intelligence
- 2016: transparency
- 2015: content marketing
- 2014: programmatic
This year's announcement follows the 2025 ANA Masters of Marketing Conference, where AI-driven workflows and brand trust dominated discussion. For more on the program and resources, visit the ANA.
Bottom line
Agentic AI gives teams speed and scale. Authenticity keeps customers. Make them work together. That's the job in 2025-and the brands that commit to both will see the compounding effects first.
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