While 99% of marketers say they personally use AI, 67% say lack of training remains a barrier to its adoption in the workplace, up three percentage points from 2023, according to a new survey from the Marketing AI Institute.
Just over a third of respondents (36%) said AI is now integrated into their daily workflows, an increase of 7 percentage points from last year, according to the 2024 State of Marketing AI report. The number of people who “couldn’t live without AI” increased from 6% in 2023 to 15% today.
When asked if their organization offered AI training to the marketing team, 75% said either no (47%), it was in development (24%), or they were not sure if it existed (4%).
Familiarity breeds understanding
Despite the lack of training, the use of technology is improving people’s skills, with 61% now reporting an intermediate understanding of AI, up from 54% in 2023; 16% reporting an advanced understanding, up from 11% last year.
Organizations’ adoption of AI continues to grow, with 51% saying their marketing teams are piloting or evolving AI, up from 42% last year.
Marketers really want AI to save them time: 80% said they want the technology to “reduce time spent on repetitive, data-driven tasks.” That’s 14 percentage points higher than the next item on the list of things they want AI to provide: “more actionable insights from marketing data.”
No less than 78% of respondents believe that in the next three years, AI will handle more than a quarter of their marketing tasks; 34% expect at least half of their marketing tasks to be automated in the same time frame.
More AI, fewer jobs?
Marketers are more pessimistic than ever about the impact of AI on marketing jobs, but there is a surprising divergence of opinion between executives and those who use it.
Overall, 47% of respondents believe AI will eliminate more jobs than it creates over the next three years, up seven percentage points from 2023. Unsurprisingly, the number of people who believe more jobs will be created than eliminated has fallen to 31%, down five percentage points from last year.
Dig deeper: Why Traditional Marketing Systems Can’t Keep Up with AI and What to Do About It
The people most likely to believe AI will eliminate more jobs are those who use it the least: executives. More than half of CEOs/presidents, CMOs, and other senior executives expect the technology to disrupt employment. However, only 40% of executives and entry-level employees believe this will happen.
The survey gave people the opportunity to voice their concerns about AI. Many fear that AI will be developed and deployed so quickly that they won’t be able to keep up. Here are some of their comments.
- “Everything moves so fast today, which (ironically) leaves little time for strategic or innovative thinking.”
- “The speed of change in an unknown and unregulated space, in which no one knows the limits of AI (and some don’t care), which overrides our natural, evolved and deeply human sense of the world and our relationship to it.”
- “It’s moving faster than we humans can keep up with.”
- “I’m afraid the company I work for is falling behind because they’re afraid of AI.”
- “The speed at which we are getting there; need to differentiate between hype and reality; need to balance the need to stay current and learn/deploy without wasting time and money on technology that will be obsolete. In other words, understand that it will take time for major players to emerge and some features to be “baked in” to larger platforms. In short, a confusing market right now.”
Methodology
The survey is based on responses to 25 questions about AI and its role in marketing and business, as well as information about the demographic characteristics of respondents. Respondents were not required to answer all questions in order to submit their responses. 1,784 respondents completed at least part of the survey, with the vast majority (73%) completing the survey in its entirety.
The highest percentage of respondents (23%) identify as a director. The second most important role is manager (22%), followed by CEO/president (20%). The majority (51%) of respondents work in companies with revenues of $10 million or more and 53% of respondents work in organizations with 50 or more employees.
It can be downloaded here. (Registration required.)
