AI has been on the rise for a good, long while. But in the past year or two, there’s been a tipping point. All signs point to a new marketing truth:
AI has progressed past the early adopters and into a world where (at least some) use is the norm.
So what exactly does that norm look like? How are marketers using this still-developing tech? Do we trust it? And what comes next?
You know around here we’re all about data. So let’s dive into the combined stats from the Content Marketing Institute’s 2024 survey and a blogging survey by Andy Crestodina and Orbit Media Studios to get some answers.
Who’s using generative AI—and how?
Survey says generative AI is well on its way in most marketing departments, with a whopping 89% of marketers saying they use generative tools. Top use cases include:
62% of survey respondents say they use AI to brainstorm. This may include asking AI to provide a list of topics, providing it with some input to get at sub-topics or common questions, or going back and forth with a chatbot to hone ideas.
Content summaries clock in as the second most common use case, with 53% of marketers saying they use AI tools to help with this task.
Drafting is slightly less popular, with only 44% employing AI tools at the content draft stage. 41% use it during optimization. And 38% say they write marketing emails using AI tools.
Now, keep in mind that these stats simply tell us how many people are using AI—not how often or how integrated the technology is. The survey also found that more than half of B2B marketing teams are doing AI experiments rather than integrating it widely throughout their processes and tools. This seems to indicate that while we’ve hit a tipping point in interest, we’re still in the early days of adoption for most companies.
Surprise! Our AI love has a (perhaps shocking) limit.
Despite this very widespread experimentation, the survey dropped a little bomb when it asked whether marketers trust AI.
The answer is a resounding no.
Only 4% of B2B marketers report a high level of trust in AI outputs.
Most marketers were on the fence, with 67% granting a medium level of trust. 28% indicate a low level of trust and 1% were on the hell-no, turn-back-now train.
Now, we don’t have enough data here to understand why marketers have adopted these tools so widely and yet don’t trust them. It could be that companies are requiring AI use and individual marketers aren’t yet confident in the tools or tech even though they must use them for their jobs. It could be that marketers are happy to use the tools but want to avoid known issues (such as AI’s recent history of producing racist social media content and incorrect Google answers) and so are treating it with (justifiable) caution. It could be that as marketers experiment with AI tools, they are finding them somewhat lacking (only 17% of B2B marketers say content generated by AI is excellent).
Or it could be a combination of these reasons and others.
What about tech applications for AI?
While generative AI has seen a surge in use based on these survey results, AI tech applications (interestingly enough) seem to be lagging behind.
45% of B2B marketers said data-driven decision-making capabilities are missing from their tech stack. Another 44% said the ability to automate repetitive tasks and workflows is noticeably absent. And advanced personalization options are on the wish list for 44%.
With AI’s touted ability to track individual preferences, analyze data, and make decisions, it’s a little surprising that these are some of the top issues cited in the survey. We’ll wager a guess that this is the next frontier we’ll see AI tools tackling in 2025 as companies realize the extent of these pain points.
Budget boosts for AI
Finally, and perhaps unsurprisingly, 40% of respondents expect a bump in funding for AI content optimization and 39% predict it for content creation in the coming year. So we expect the late-2025 survey to show even more growth in AI use and integration. We also expect that the 79% of marketers who said AI skills will become essential to stay relevant in their jobs are absolutely correct.
As always, success is tied to strategy, process, and documentation
When CMI compared highly successful marketing teams to their less-successful counterparts, they found that the most successful companies were nearly twice as likely to have generative AI guidelines than the laggards.
Successful companies were also more likely to have AI integrated into their workflows and to be using AI specifically for efficiency in those workflows.
Strategy and process aren’t always the sexiest things to talk about in marketing, but they are—yet again—tied strongly to success. Processes, guidelines, strategy documents, and integration make a marked difference when adopting any new tech.
And if you’re figuring out where AI fits into your workflows, company culture, and toolsets, we’re here to help. Contact us anytime.
[GG1] If you’ve posted the article on AI issues by now, this would be a good place to link out.
