Think AI can scale personalization alone? by Adobe

Customers expect content tailored for them. In fact, 71% of consumers say  it’s “critical” for brands to anticipate their needs and serve relevant content in the moment. But only 34% believe brands actually deliver.

The disconnect doesn’t signify a lack of effort, but a lack of scale. Real personalization is about reaching every customer with the right content at the right time. That requires more than just creating extra email banners. You have to build a robust content engine that runs reliably at speed.

That engine is your content supply chain.

Caution: Scaling personalization may break workflows

AI can supercharge content generation, but it has not solved the biggest roadblock to personalization: disconnected content supply chains. Generated assets still require human oversight, approval and timely delivery. Without streamlined processes, AI can add friction and become just another tool lost in a cluttered drawer.

Common challenges that prevent personalized content:

• Manual, repetitive tasks that drain creative teams and limit scale.
• Fragmented systems that cause version confusion and duplicate work.
• Insufficient governance that slows delivery or releases off-brand content.

As demand explodes, content teams drown

“Demand for content shows no signs of slowing,” said Amit Ahuja, senior vice president, Digital Experience Business at Adobe. “Nearly two-thirds of customer experience professionals expect demand to rise five-fold over the next two years.”

Campaigns that once called for dozens of assets now require hundreds or thousands tailored for specific regions, segments, and channels. According to IDC, by 2026 enterprise content is projected to consume 155 exabytes—roughly the equivalent of 15 billion high-resolution images.

But as Helen Wallace, Creative Director at Deloitte Digital said, “The content supply chain isn’t just about delivering content faster and more efficiently. It’s about creating content that engages people on an individual level.”

When systems fail, so do good ideas

Even well-prepared global brands stumble when content supply chains break. Despite solid creative strategies, teams can miss launch deadlines because assets are scattered across platforms or approvals get tangled in email threads.

Without coordination, the wasted creativity can be astounding. An estimated 44% of creative teams spend up to half their time on low-value work like resizing assets. According to some Adobe customers, 50-70% of content produced is never used because teams can’t easily find it.

Time for a full marketing engine rebuild

According to IBM, leaders in personalization don’t just invest in isolated AI image generators. They re-engineer their content supply chain from end to end—and they do it on the cloud. With that foundation, it’s possible to connect teams, scale securely, and keep content moving quickly.

“Modern personalization requires infrastructure built for tomorrow’s demands,” said Ann Culver, Principal Partner Development Manager at Amazon Web Services (AWS). “As content operations scale exponentially, organizations need cloud infrastructure that can deliver the speed, scale, and intelligence necessary for modern content operations.”

Here’s what a cloud-powered content supply chain looks like in practice:

Workflow and planning: Scrap siloed spreadsheets and ad hoc tools. Standardize project management with a single, cloud-based hub that manages content requests, briefs and timelines. Teams gain real-time visibility across projects, wherever they are.

Creation and production: Use generative AI running on high-performance cloud technology to accelerate repetitive tasks or content generation (potentially up to 50 times faster, according to McKinsey & Company).

Asset management: Make content libraries searchable and accessible globally with a cloud-based digital asset management (DAM) solution. Teams can quickly reuse or localize deliverables while remaining compliant and on brand.

Delivery and activation: Ditch manual uploads and opt for cloud integration instead. Content can flow directly from DAM to publishing channels with low latency, so campaigns adapt faster across regions.

Reporting and insights: Cloud analytics provide a holistic view of content performance in real time. Teams can measure, learn, and optimize future campaigns immediately.

You wouldn’t run a streaming service on dial-up. Likewise, you can’t scale personalized content on-prem. The cloud unlocks the agility and scale you need to make AI and automation deliver on their promise.

One more thing: Don’t skip change management. Communicate early and often with teams and provide adequate training. More than half of executives report that organizational change is a critical challenge hindering the improvement of content supply chains.

You need both technology and people to pull off transformation.

Turn potential into performance

Organizations that want to scale personalization need an integrated, AI- and cloud-enabled content supply chain.

Adobe and AWS deliver solutions that unify every stage of the content lifecycle—from creative brief to analytics report. Adobe’s generative AI, automation and collaboration tools help streamline creation and approval. AWS provides the scalable infrastructure needed to deliver and adapt content securely at global scale.

Learn more about Adobe and AWS solutions here.