Marketers hit by 'maelstrom of confusion' over AI tools

The rise of artificial intelligence may have taken the advertising and marketing industry by storm but in reality the technology has triggered mass confusion, with many businesses daunted by which tools to adopt, how and when, as the market becomes flooded with ever more platforms.

So says a new Forrester Research report, Generative AI Brings Superpowers to Portfolio Marketers, which maintains that, although the tech has the power to transform how B2B and B2C marketers do their jobs, it is still stumping most.

And, with Gartner recently reporting that nearly two-thirds of marketing teams (64%) are already leveraging AI, that is potentially a big problem.

Forrester states: “The launch of ChatGPT and the rapid proliferation of GenAI tools have created ongoing discussions and discoveries about their potential impact across many scenarios and use cases — along with the potential dangers. The sheer level of capabilities it brings to so many different fields has created a maelstrom of confusion.”

The challenges highlighted in the report include the fact that access is deeply depended on the workplace, with organisational practices and guidelines around the use of GenAI varying widely and many firms are still playing it safe and banning any employee use of GenAI tools.

Businesses are also deeply confused about the multiple ways to access GenAI capabilities – which systems to use, how, and when – due to the proliferation of tools and path to access.

The lack of defined processes and standards is also a factor. Within the boundaries of organisational guidelines, many marketers are actively trying out GenAI tools for different use cases.

To make using GenAI effective, Forrester insists marketers should not adopt a “one size fits all” mentality, insteand thet should figure out specific areas where AI can improve the speed, efficiency and awareness of branding and messaging campaigns.

Areas where Forrester says GenAI can deliver key benefits include many of the well-known factors including its ability to summarise huge swathes of information from multiple sources, allowing marketers to rapidly consume the latest information.

GenAI can also automate mundane tasks like data entry, note-taking, and reporting, freeing up time and resources for more complex and strategic work.

However, perhaps less well known is GenAI’s ability to spark creativity and ideation, of particular use for many marketers who face a broad remit of responsibility and endless to-do lists.

It can also assist in repackaging content for different uses, enabling marketers to increase productivity in content creation by asking GenAI to develop short- or long-form.

Perhaps its most stand-out benefit, however, is enabling the Holy Grail of personalisation at scale, with content-generation GenAI tools trained on the best on-message content to help marketing teams create emails, ads, and landing pages.

Forrester concluded: “As the number of platforms continues to grow, marketers often rely on word of mouth to find tools that fit their needs and company requirements.

“[But] GenAI’s ability to communicate and engage a prospect or customer based on their industry, geographic region, functional responsibility, or even buyer role can pay dividends in the level of response and engagement.”