By Marcia SavageSAP
Studies show that socially conscious consumers are willing to pay more for products from brands committed to environmental sustainability. Would they do the same for non-AI products?
Gartner predicts that by 2027, 20% of brands will tend to differentiate themselves based on the absence of artificial intelligence in their activity and their products.
31% of U.S. B2B marketers use AI for chatbots, coding and design, according to a survey by Sagefrog Marketing Group. Another 30% use AI for content and presentations.
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In other words, if consumers question the authenticity of marketing materials and advertisements containing AI-generated content, savvy CMOs could build marketing strategies around the absence of images or text AI.
This approach to AI and marketing wouldn’t come out of nowhere. In fact, Americans are now more concerned than excited about AI in their daily lives. Research on the bench Center survey find. And 72% of consumers are concerned that AI-powered content could spread false or misleading information, according to Gartner. This distrust will lead some to seek out brands without AI, the firm believes.
“A subcategory of brands will eschew AI and prioritize more human positioning. This “acoustic” concept will be leveraged to move brands away from the perception of AI-enabled businesses as impersonal and homogeneous,” said Emily Weiss, senior researcher at Gartner.
AI and marketing statistics
Sounding this kind of alarm now might seem premature given that AI is still emerging in most marketing plans. But it’s changing faster than many people think.
Consider these numbers:
- Roughly 80% of CMOs They plan to increase their spending on AI and data this year, up 57% from last year, according to a survey from Accenture.
- 31% of B2B marketers in the United States use AI for chatbots, coding and design, according to a survey from Sagefrog Marketing Group. Another 30% use AI for content and presentations.
- More than a third (35%) of CMOs use generative AI as part of their daily toolkits, according to an annual survey by the global digital network Dentsu Creative.
Nicole Lefferan independent advisor to the CMO in AI, says that such statistics prove that the train has left the station on the adoption of AI in marketing and that it would be ill-advised to try to differentiate between not ‘to use.
Leffer points to the significant time and cost savings that AI automation brings to organizations – which some studies suggest could be more than 50% – means that companies that avoid AI would eventually have to charge more than their competitors that use it. Although some CMOs might take this route, she doesn’t think this approach is sustainable.
“People are already adapting to the idea of AI in their lives,” she says. Although they are willing to pay more for an eco-friendly product that protects the planet and saves future generations, she doesn’t see consumers doing the same for products without AI.
Setting guardrails for AI in marketing
While experts say marketing directors are almost reckless AI Opportunities ignore them, they advise establishing general guardrails for AI-generated content, such as the exclusive use of:
- Real human beings: While it’s common in marketing to leverage digitally created characters or avatars in content, AI presents scary opportunities to create fake images that are indistinguishable from reality. Marketers might consider avoiding this approach or being completely transparent if they employ fake personas.
- Real products: The consequences of misrepresenting a product’s appearance or behavior using AI could be significant. Regulators could even see it as false advertising. Be careful with this and have firm and transparent policies about it.
- Careful check: AI can be amazing, but it has problems, namely its tendency to fill holes in its training by inventing stuff. It is also subject to episodes of plagiarism as well as racial, sexual and political prejudice. As such, no marketer or advertising manager should include AI-generated content if it has not been carefully vetted by humans.
Walk towards the unknown
There will be growing challenges as marketers experiment with AI and push the boundaries of authenticity in written, audio, photographic and video content, Leffler says. It is not yet clear, for example, how consumers might respond to a TV ad featuring AI-generated humans or AI depictions of products.
“There’s a huge difference between not using AI for specific applications like this, which could be seen as a misrepresentation of the reality of what you’re selling, and not using AI to help you in anything,” she said.
All we really know is that these AI technologies are emerging so quickly that it will be difficult to stop and consider their ethical implications in real time.
Still, it’s important for CMOs to start investing in AI today, if they haven’t already, because the technology will change their world.
“If you wait another year, you will be seriously behind,” Leffler says. “The pace at which this is growing and evolving is unlike anything marketers have experienced, so do it now.”
This story was originally published on The future of commerce.
