Marketers leading the way on adoption of GenAI
compared to colleagues in IT; CMOs leaving money on the table by
not fully understanding potential of GenAI
CARY,
N.C., Sept. 10, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- A new
global study, Marketers and GenAI: Diving Into the Shallow
End from SAS and Coleman Parkes Research, reveals that
while 90 percent of organizations plan to invest in generative AI
for marketing in 2025, 90 percent of CMOs admit that they do not
fully understand GenAI or its potential impact on business
processes.
This lack of detailed understanding of GenAI among senior
decision makers in marketing may be hindering the eventual adoption
of more sophisticated uses of GenAI – uses that could translate to
improved organizational efficiencies, sustained marketing
effectiveness and ultimately a sustained competitive
advantage.
Lack of Gen AI understanding among senior
decision makers in marketing may hinder more sophisticated
adoption
While 75 percent of marketers are currently using GenAI in
their day-to-day work – in fact marketing is ahead of other
business functions, including IT, in the adoption of GenAI – many
marketers are using GenAI for simplistic tasks like copywriting,
editing and content creation, which only scratches the surface of
what's possible. When it comes to more sophisticated marketing use
cases, only:
- 18 percent are using the technology to build audiences.
- 16 percent are using GenAI for customer journey mapping.
- 14 percent are using it for price optimization.
- 19 percent are using GenAI for audience targeting.
This is not optimal as marketers report that when they do
embrace GenAI, they are seeing strong return on their investment,
particularly in terms of personalization (92%), customer
satisfaction and retention (89%), processing large data sets (88%),
and accuracy in predictive analytics (88%).
"It isn't surprising that marketers lead the way in GenAI
adoption, as it lends itself to experimentation and creativity –
both hallmarks of the marketing profession," said Jenn Chase, Chief Marketing Officer and
Executive Vice President at SAS. "However, it is disappointing that
a lack of understanding of GenAI at the CMO and senior management
level is holding organizations back from experiencing the full
potential of this exciting new technology. Education and training
are critical to overcome this obstacle as GenAI usage not only
increases productivity, but it can also improve customer experience
and drive business growth."
The good news is this looks set to change as marketers predict
that they will expand their use of GenAI within the next one-to-two
years in the hope of saving time and costs (63%), improving risk
management and compliance (62%), and enabling more efficient
processing of large data sets (60%). One in five anticipate
immersive applications such as adaptive virtual reality, rising to
three in 10 among those who have already fully adopted GenAI.
While lack of strategic direction from CMOs is an obstacle to
successful utilization of GenAI, so too is concern over privacy and
trust. Six in 10 (61%) marketers reveal their main concern about
GenAI usage is data security, and 61 percent also cite data
privacy. These are the top two concerns across all respondents and
with good cause. While one-third of organizations have a
well-established and comprehensive governance framework for data
management, this falls to less than 1 in 10 for GenAI. Those who
have fully implemented GenAI for marketing are more likely to have
a well-established and comprehensive governance framework, but 4 in
10 do not.
"A significant gap exists between the art of what is possible
with GenAI for MarTech, and what is being accomplished today," said
Jonathan Moran, Head of Martech
Solutions Marketing at SAS. "The research highlights that most
organizations across industries have significant work to do around
GenAI education and enablement as well as data governance and
compliance - and performing that work will aid in fostering trust
between brand and consumer when it comes to the application of AI
for marketing and customer experience pursuits."
About SAS Customer Intelligence 360
As a complete SaaS
solution, SAS Customer Intelligence 360 is a multichannel marketing
hub that takes marketers beyond a traditional customer data
platform with market-leading advanced audience creation, targeting
and activation. It enables marketing to provide real-time,
hyper-personalized, AI-driven decisions, offers and communications
at scale.
Learn more about how organizations are using SAS MarTech
solutions.
About SAS
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SAS software and industry-specific solutions, organizations
transform data into trusted decisions. SAS gives you THE POWER TO
KNOW®.
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Editorial Contact:
Angela Lipscomb
angela.lipscomb@sas.com
919-531-2525
sas.com/news
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SOURCE SAS