New data says that marketers think AI is going to have a massive impact on jobs in the industry.
How important is AI going to be for marketers in the near future?
Is AI going to have a positive or negative impact on marketing jobs?
How will it affect marketing jobs?
Research from Marketing AI Institute and Drift has the answers.
We teamed up with Drift to gain unparalleled insights into the awareness, understanding, and adoption of AI throughout the marketing industry in our 2021 State of Marketing AI Report.
Using Marketing AI Institute's AI Score for MarketersTM assessment, marketers had the opportunity to answer 13 survey questions, and rate the value of 49 sample marketing AI use cases. More than 400 marketers answered portions of the survey, and 235 completed all questions and use case ratings.
What we found is that marketers see AI as incredibly important to their work in the next year—and assume AI will automate the majority of their tasks in the next five years. But, overall, marketers are solidly optimistic about the change.
1. Most Marketers Say AI Is Important to Success This Year
When asked how important AI is to the success of their marketing over the next 12 months, 52 percent said it was “very” or “critically” important. Another 34% said it would be somewhat important to their success. Only four percent said AI was not important at all.
Q: “How important is AI to the success of your marketing over the next 12 months?”
2. Most Marketers Think AI Will Automate 25%+ of Their Work
What’s more, many marketers believe that AI will intelligently automate a sizable portion of the tasks their team does over the next five years.
When asked what percentage of their marketing tasks were intelligently automated today, more than 77 percent of marketers said less than a quarter. However, 80 percent of marketers think they will be intelligently automating more than a quarter of their tasks five years from now. In fact, 43 percent believe that more than half of all their marketing tasks will be intelligently automated to some degree in the next five years.
Q1: “What percentage of marketing tasks that your team performs are intelligently automated to some degree TODAY? (i.e. AI is applied to improve the efficiency and/or performance of the task.)”
Q2: What percentage of marketing tasks that your team performs do you believe will be intelligently automated to some degree in the NEXT FIVE YEARS? (i.e. AI will be applied to improve the efficiency and/or performance of the task.)”
Does this level of importance and intelligent automation worry marketers?
It doesn’t appear so. In fact, most are optimistic about AI’s impact on the industry.
3. Most Marketers Are Optimistic About AI's Long-Term Impact
When asked what they believed the net effect of AI would be on marketing jobs over the next 10 years, the majority of marketers are optimistic that AI will have a net positive impact on jobs. In fact, 56 percent say they expect more jobs will be created by AI. Only 23 percent say more jobs will be eliminated by AI, and 13 percent said they don’t know what AI’s impact will be.
Q: “What do you believe the net effect of AI will be on marketing jobs over the next decade?”
What else do marketers think about AI?
The 2021 State of Marketing AI Report has dozens of other key findings that can help any marketers, executive, or AI-powered vendor better understand the state of artificial intelligence in marketing.
Click below to get the full report now.
Paul Roetzer
Paul Roetzer is founder and CEO of Marketing AI Institute. He is the author of Marketing Artificial Intelligence (Matt Holt Books, 2022) The Marketing Performance Blueprint (Wiley, 2014) and The Marketing Agency Blueprint (Wiley, 2012); and creator of the Marketing AI Conference (MAICON).