5 Ways Email Marketers Can Leverage AI Tools in 2025 (AND BEYOND)
Artificial intelligence tools are transforming the way brands create, send, and optimize email marketing campaigns. For lifecycle marketers, the biggest challenge is often figuring out where to start. Do you rebuild your entire program around AI? Swap out every workflow?
The truth is you don’t need a complete overhaul. The smarter path is to test small, high-impact workflows that prove value quickly, then scale what works. Below are five AI-powered optimizations that can help your email marketing team boost performance in the near and long term.
1. Predictive Send-Time Optimization
Is it better for your brand to send an abandonment email campaign 15 minutes or 30 minutes after the initial abandonment event? What about 60 minutes? Instead of guessing or running a cumbersome, manual time-of-day test, AI tools can analyze each subscriber’s past engagement to predict the moment they’re most likely to open. Higher engagement not only improves campaign results but also supports deliverability as inbox providers are increasingly using behavior signals (like opens and clicks) in filtering. Get started by:
Focusing efforts on high impact flows like your welcome series and abandon cart
Parallel pathing alongside your standard “batch-and-blast” email campaigns
Comparing optimized send times vs. your current static schedule (you can even use generative AI tools like ChatGPT to help analyze the data)
Expanding into other channels (SMS, push) if available
The good news? Native features in Klaviyo, Iterable, and Salesforce Marketing Cloud already support predictive send times.
2. Automated Subject Line & Copy Generation
Subject lines and preview text are the first—and sometimes only—chance to earn an open. And with mailbox providers like Gmail, Yahoo and Outlook implementing new AI-powered filtering capabilities of their own, it’s more important than ever to maximize your email relevance and engagement. In addition to generic AI tools like ChatGPT and Claude, copywriting and brand-specific platforms like Jacquard, Jasper, and Copy.ai can generate dozens of variations in seconds, providing fresh test ideas without draining creative bandwidth. Some tips:
Feed in your top-performing subject lines as training examples
Run A/B or multivariate tests with AI-generated variations
Measure downstream metrics like clicks and conversions, not just opens
3. Dynamic Content Personalization
With AI, content blocks can adjust in real time based on browsing, purchase, or engagement data—ensuring each email subscriber gets a message that feels directly relevant to them. Some tools are specifically designed to support AI-driven personalization within emails, like Movable Ink, Persado, and Klaviyo’s recommendation engine.
Add a personalized recommendation block in an email campaign or workflow messages
Use AI to populate content dynamically at open
Measure lift in click-through rate and revenue per recipient
4. Churn Prediction & Re-Engagement
Not every disengaged subscriber is the same. AI models can analyze your data and score your list to identify who’s at genuine risk of churning. Then, they can automatically trigger win-back campaigns tailored to their behavior. Tools like Iterable, Salesforce, and Customer.io offer native churn prediction tools and automated flow triggers to make it easy for email marketers to implement.
Define what churn risk looks like for your business (e.g., no open in 30 days, lapsed purchase 180 days)
Let AI scoring models segment high-risk users
Use the scoring data to trigger flows with messaging calibrated to risk level—content for light lapses, incentives for deeper lapses
5. Creative Asset Assistance
While many of us are familiar with using AI tools to generate quick copy variants, more lifecycle marketers and their creative teams are leveraging AI to streamline design, too. From resizing images to generating on-brand creative variants, these tools make it easier to test and refresh creative without heavy design resources. Tools like Adobe Firefly, Canva Magic Resize, and Figma Make AI plugins can all enable more efficient creative workflows:
Generate alternate hero images or headers with AI design tools
A/B test AI-enhanced assets against your control version
Track which visuals lift engagement and conversions
The Bottom Line
AI isn’t about replacing your email marketing team (or your creative team)—it’s about making the results of their efforts more impactful. Workflows like predictive send-time, AI copywriting, personalization, churn prediction, and creative assistance free marketers from repetitive tasks and unlock more time for strategy and creativity.
By starting small, measuring impact, and scaling what works, lifecycle marketers can drive stronger results with fewer resources. The inbox is evolving quickly, and the brands that adopt these efficiencies now will be the ones able to scale personalization, sustain engagement, and stay ahead as AI-driven inboxes continue to change the rules.
Need help keeping up with how AI is reshaping lifecycle marketing? Newly Marketing can help you leverage AI to imrpove your email marketing program and stay at the top of the inbox. Let’s connect—reach out today!
About the Author
Lily Newman is the Founder & Principal of Newly Marketing, a digital marketing consultancy specializing in lifecycle and retention marketing for DTC, E-Commerce, Retail, and CPG brands. From integrated marketing strategy to campaign production, email marketing operations to performance measurement, we offer the expertise and leadership your business needs to build a world-class digital marketing program.
