Generative AI has undoubtedly swept through the marketing industry like a dose of salts, with seven-in-ten UK businesses already seeing a positive ROI from at least one use case but many firms are hitting a brick wall when it comes to moving beyond pilot projects.
New research from Google Cloud has found the main stumbling blocks to be a lack of clear leadership and confused priorities, meaning organisations frequently cannot roll out their activities.
The areas seen as most promising for GenAI are customer and field service, with nearly half (45%) of all businesses seeing success in this area, followed by new products and services (39%), and digital commerce and enhanced experiences (38%).
Of those using GenAI for customer service and productivity, around a third of said they are seeing a significant ROI, while other popular use cases include individual productivity tools like emails, documents, presentations, meetings, and chat, along with back office/business processes; more than half of UK businesses currently use it for these purposes.
Overall, more than six in ten UK businesses have adopted GenAI, and have at least one use case in production. Similarly, nearly three-in-five plan to allocate more than half their AI budget to GenAI.
However, Google Cloud found two-in-five have yet to implement GenAI in production, indicating major issues in scaling up to actual implementation but the report noted that the vast majority of organisations with C-level sponsorship said they experienced increased revenue growth of more than 6%.
Google Cloud UKI managing director Helen Kelisky said: “The UK is clearly embracing the transformative power of GenAI, with many businesses already seeing a significant return on their investments. However, it’s equally clear that successfully scaling GenAI across the business is a complex journey.
“The survey underscores the transformative potential of GenAI for UK businesses. However, the transition from pilot to production remains a critical challenge. To fully harness the power of the technology, UK organisations should prioritise strategic alignment, invest in change management and upskilling, and enhance data quality and knowledge management.”
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