Nearly two-thirds (64%) of consumers believe personalized recommendations are important, and nearly a third (30%) go so far as to say that personalized recommendations are one of the key ways brands can improve their overall digital experience.
However, consumers say greater personalization should not come at the expense of privacy and data governance, with 92% believing brands should use their data responsibly.
This is according to Adobe’s Digital Trends report, which surveyed more than 1,000 UK consumers on how they want brands to engage with them online.
More than half (57%) of consumers said they were happy for their age and gender to be used by brands to personalize their experiences, but were less comfortable receiving personalized experiences based on their ethnicity (28%), browsing history (web; 25% or social; 21%) and income (15%).
The survey also revealed a strong desire among marketers to further personalise their activities and campaigns, with generative AI expected to play a crucial role in extending personalisation across their customer base. More than a third (38%) of marketers have already started using generative AI solutions, and a quarter (25%) are using generative AI to create emails, messages and other content. Despite this early adoption, the majority of UK marketing respondents (56%) are proceeding with caution, ensuring the quality of AI-generated content to maintain customer trust.
Christophe Marée, EMEA Marketing Director at Adobe, said: “Generative AI has the potential to revolutionise the way brands and marketers engage with their customers. While it enables a high degree of personalisation at scale across an entire customer base, marketers need to stay within the comfort of their audience. Marketers expect personalised experiences, but they also have strong opinions about what data should and should not be used. Generative AI is a powerful tool, but the message to brands is clear: they need to be careful not to overstep the mark, use it responsibly by training their AI on authentic and verified content, and maintain a high degree of transparency and data governance.”
The main conclusions are as follows:
People expect more personalization from their bank than from healthcare providers or grocery retailers
- Personalization needs to go beyond simply knowing your customer, it needs to take into account brand relationships and past interactions; 31% of UK consumers want offers that are relevant to them, putting them above the simple courtesy of using their name (23%).
- Consumers expect more personalisation from some sectors than others. 28% of UK consumers expect their bank to address them by name in all digital communications. When it comes to healthcare providers, 25% expect to be addressed by name in all digital communications, and in the grocery sector, only 12% expect the same.
Shoppers are happy for AI to make recommendations and speed up the shopping experience, but they want to know when they’re interacting with a bot or a human
- Majority of consumers are happy for AI to make suggestions (84%) and recommendations (81%)
- More than two-thirds (67%) are at least somewhat comfortable with brands using AI-generated images to make marketing messages more engaging, but 83% say it matters whether they are talking to a robot or a human.
- 67% are looking for a “more interactive” online shopping experience.
In retail, consumers want a seamless customer experience, no matter what platform they use
- 76% of UK consumers expect a seamless experience across all customer channels, in-store, over the phone and online.
- Consumers want to be able to navigate between self-service channels and human- or AI-assisted channels. Four in ten shoppers (9%) say a seamless handoff from self-service to a human agent would improve their digital experience, and 37% want improvements to self-service options.
Marketers are already using generative AI to accelerate content production and targeting
- More than a third of UK consumers surveyed (38%) are already implementing initial AI Gen solutions, and a quarter (25%) are using AI Gen to create emails, messages and other texts. 21% are using AI Gen to personalise images, infographics or video content.
- 45% of senior executives expect the ability to personalize content at scale across channels to have the greatest impact on their business in 2024.
- More than two-fifths (42%) of businesses say they are improving self-service portals for better customer experiences as their top plan for using Generation AI in 2024.
- More than half (58%) of respondents believe that the top challenge brands will face in managing Gen AI content in 2024 is ensuring quality and customer trust, and 56% cite monitoring of AI content (for accuracy, quality control, and to moderate potentially harmful output, for example) as the top Gen AI challenge for brands this year.
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