During the last earnings call, Amazon CEO Andy Jassy attributed the growth of the company's advertising arm to AI and machine learning investments which brought in 23% Year-Over-Year growth.
Indeed, many companies are seeing lucrative ROI on AI and machine learning investments, particularly in the marketing departments. The latest survey conducted by Sitecore revealed that marketers are shifting their budgets from planned investments in metaverse technology to generative AI.Sitecore's research indicates that 75% of marketers are exploring or investing in AI to enhance their marketing and customer experience efforts, and 78% believe that GAI can help them achieve their desired CX through improved personalization (75%) and a deeper comprehension of customer requirements (74%).
"The recent rate of innovation in marketing technology has been truly remarkable. Rather than becoming overwhelmed and exhausted by these advancements, however, we've found marketers to be bold and experimental in embracing technologies like ChatGPT. Unlike other platforms that have been challenging to implement, generative AI shows promise in not only being relatively easy to integrate into composable software offerings and wider martech stacks, but also quick to have a measurable impact on marketing campaigns," said Dave O'Flanagan, Chief Product Officer of Sitecore.
Generative AI platforms, such as ChatGPT, have gained popularity among marketers and have surpassed other recently hyped technologies. The metaverse was a major focus for marketers last year, but its momentum seems to have slowed down. Sitecore's 2022 Perceptions of the Metaverse report revealed that 56% of marketers had invested in "metaverse-like technologies." Still, in this recent survey, AI (79%) and digital experience software (56%) were rated as higher priorities. Only 36% of respondents considered the metaverse the most important, and 38% even reallocated their budget from metaverse projects to support AI deployment.
88 % still enthusiastic about new technologies
According to the survey, companies believe that AI can greatly benefit their customer service, with 24% considering it the top function for AI assistance. The primary objective of deploying AI in customer service is to enhance customer loyalty. To finance these AI deployments, 39% of respondents plan to allocate 21-40% of their budget for the following year's AI programs.
Although marketing technology trends have overwhelmed marketing teams in recent years, the vast majority (88%) are still enthusiastic about discovering and implementing new technologies. However, many marketers (76%) have encountered budgetary challenges due to their rapid adoption of new technologies, which has resulted in a constant need to adjust budgets to accommodate investments in new marketing technology features.
The majority (77%) of marketers reported feeling confident that their marketing technology stack could effectively utilize GAI. However, some concerns lingered, with the cost of implementation (45%), potential data privacy risks (41%), and the need for system modernization (26%) being the top concerns among marketers.
The objective of the survey was to assess the level of interest in GAI among marketers, identify potential opportunities for GAI to revolutionize current CX strategies, and determine the necessary technology for a successful GAI implementation.
Speaking of generative AI, Sitecore has recently integrated Open AI ChatGPT into its software solutions.
