Organisations who are already investing in generative AI for marketing are dedicating almost two thirds of their budget towards the technology, according to new figures from Capgemini.
62% of marketing budgets are going on generative AI, according to a poll of 1,800 global marketing executives at organisations with annual revenues of more than $1 billion USD. The same percentage of respondents believe that generative AI will ‘augment human creativity, enhancing unique human qualities such as intuition, emotion, and context understanding.’
Capgemini sees this therefore as a ‘breakthrough technology’ and a ‘catalyst for creativity and innovation in marketing.’ More than half of marketers polled noted that generative AI will act as a catalyst for unlocking new creative possibilities (57%), while 55% expect the technology will make teams ‘think beyond conventional boundaries.’
The most likely use cases for generative AI among marketing teams going forward is data analysis, cited by 90% of respondents, followed by SEO (89%), customer service (89%), content creation (88%), and image and video generation (86%).
The rise of generative AI has seen participants across the industry scrambling to get a footing on the mountain. Some have concerns about where their future lies. 71% of organisations surveyed by Capgemini anticipate that certain marketing roles will be significantly or moderately impacted by generative AI.
Those in the line of fire include SEO specialists, digital marketing and creative directors, PR and comms specialists, copywriters, and customer insight specialists. Yet the martech vendors are promising in their partnerships that the technology is friend rather than foe; take SAS’ platform integration announcement in September, or Google Cloud partner Typeface in the same month as examples.
From the marketers’ perspective, they are keen to invest but fear a lack of knowledge. A study from Sitecore in May found almost half of UK-based respondents felt their marketing technology was currently ill-equipped to leverage generative AI.
Capgemini recommends that organisations adopt a pragmatic investment approach, and have a tech infrastructure assessment as part of that. Alongside this, companies need to ‘strengthen oversight with robust ethical guidelines that emphasise iterative execution through experimentation, robust data security, and environmental awareness.’
What does this mean? A balance needs to be struck – and many marketing leaders believe it can be struck. One of the experts interviewed for the research, Claudia Willvonseder, executive board member at Dr. Oetker, notes that strategic thinking and creativity ‘remain in the domain of experts – humans.’
“The future of marketing will undeniably be influenced by the widespread adoption of generative AI to deliver personalised content and communication; its value realisation will need a fusion of strategic choices, human-centred creativity and a good understanding of the art of the possible in a very fast-moving space,” said Gadandeep Gadri, managing director of Frog, part of management consultancy Capgemini Invent.
“In many ways this feels like the digital boom from 20 years ago, where the brands that succeeded were those that stayed true to their values but were brave and bold on how digital could deliver growth for their business,” added Gadri. “The same will apply for generative AI.”
The full findings can be found in the report ‘Generative AI and the evolving role of marketing: A CMO’s playbook’.
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