Further evidence has emerged of companies’ failure to move beyond AI pilots, with a new analysis revealing only 10% of marketing specialists in the UK and Ireland (UKI) have already optimised the use of AI in their department and now want to use it more.
The figures come from a joint study conducted by HubSpot and LinkedIn called, “The Intersection of Marketing, Data and AI”, which quizzed 2,306 marketing managers in Europe were surveyed for the study, including 610 from UKI and found other European countries such as Finland (20%) and Switzerland (17%) are well ahead of the UK.
When it comes to the five stages of AI adoption (awareness, testing, implementation, optimisation and digital transformation), over half (55%) of UK organisations sit somewhere in the middle around the testing and implementation stages, compared to 58% in Ireland. In contrast, two thirds (64%) of Finnish organisations are in the same stage, the most of all European countries.
While this does appear to convert to the implementation stage with almost a quarter (22%) of UKI organisations currently in this phase, there is a drastic drop-off after that, with only 10% of companies optimising their use of AI.
Marketing professionals see insufficient budgets as their top obstacle to introducing AI solutions, a challenge shared by almost half of UKI organisations (48%). However, they do not anticipate this challenge will be here for long as 81% expect their budget for AI technologies to increase in the coming year.
HubSpot UK country and general manager Lalitha Stables said: “It’s clear AI is top of mind for British marketers. Unfortunately, they are being held back by budget constraints, but there is hope with an expected uptick of AI budgets coming.
“The focus for UK marketers should be to progress through the stages of AI adoption and ensure they don’t apply a set-and-forget approach. We’re seeing a quarter of organisations move from testing to implementation, but not enough revisiting their implementations and optimising them.”
Despite facing challenges in integrating AI solutions – particularly in identifying the most effective tools – the report predicts the UKI region is poised for success. The region has the second-highest level of AI adoption, and 81% of marketing leaders have an overwhelmingly positive response towards AI adoption into marketing operations.
Their existing use of data for decision-making means the groundwork is already in place. Paired with optimistic leadership and high levels of internal integration, the UKI region has the necessary ingredients to influence AI optimisation, the study predicts.
LinkedIn senior director of EMEA and LATAM Tom Pepper said: “The top-performing marketing teams are using AI to empower data-driven decision-making to refine strategies, boost ROI, and personalise customer experiences.
“As companies move through the different stages of AI adoption within the marketing function, success will depend on strong marketing and sales alignment, finding the right talent, and striking the right balance of human intervention across tasks to achieve high levels of accuracy and reach AI optimisation.”
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