Abstract
<jats:p>In the contemporary market, Artificial Intelligence (AI) is increasingly recognized as a transformative element that enhances customer engagement and decision-making efficiency while gaining a competitive advantage. However, despite its rapid adoption, prevailing research on the use and integration of AI in marketing remains fragmented, lacking a solid synthesis of awareness. This study presents a systematic review following a careful exploration of AI's diverse applications in marketing, focusing on three major dimensions: existing usage patterns across the marketing synthesis, organizational, technical, and ethical obstacles to implementation, and strategic gaps between AI deployment and long-term marketing objectives in both academic research and practical integration. The study utilizes the PRISMA 2020 framework (Page et al., 2021) and reviewed 150 peer-reviewed journals (2015 – 2025) collected from databases such as Scopus, ResearchGate, Web of Science, ScienceDirect, and Google Scholar. Using thematic synthesis (Braun & Clarke, 2006), 45 articles were selected for the analysis based on the categories, integration barriers, and strategic misalignments. Findings showcase that AI usage is concentrated in several aspects, such as personalization, predictive analytics, and marketing automation. However, major strategic gaps are identified: gaps dominate: the personalization trap, integration gap, measurement gap, and ethics–strategy gap. This study contributed to the literature by providing the first structured mapping of AI usage, integration, and strategy gaps in marketing and proposing a broad agenda for future research and administrative practice.</jats:p>