By John Premkumar, Vice President & Global Head of Digital Experience, Infosys
AI is making its way into every corner of organisations, streamlining processes, enhancing workflows, and delivering impact. Marketing is no exception, with businesses increasingly leveraging AI across workflows — for brainstorming content ideas to executing promotional campaigns. And 79% of marketers in India are using AI in their workflows. However, only a handful of marketers report consistent success across all AI deployments. By prioritising the factors that drive real business value, marketers can boost their chances of achieving impactful outcomes.
Key applications of AI
Chief marketing officers (CMOs) get the most value from AI when they use it more frequently, according to new research from Infosys. For instance, those deploying AI for just a single activity created value only 29% of the time. But of CMOs using the technology in all seven activities listed in the research, 70% said a majority of their deployments were creating value.
Marketers report that AI is enhancing every stage of the process, from ideation to execution.
Ad spend management: Marketers working within tight budgets are optimising ad spend by leveraging data-driven insights, which enable precise audience targeting at the right time, and through the right channels, ensuring maximum ROI and helping swift, informed decision-making.
Campaign planning and execution: Automating campaign planning with AI frees marketers from time-consuming tasks like scheduling messages, allowing them to focus on higher-value activities such as strategic planning. Additionally, AI is streamlining the process of sending and tracking messages, enhancing efficiency.
Content creation: 43% of marketers using AI are doing it with the purpose of creating content. AI helps generate campaign communications, including text, images, and design elements, in seconds, saving time. Disney+ uses AI to tailor commercials that match the mood of specific scenes in TV series or films. Indian e-commerce company Flipkart also uses AI to create its advertisements.
Post-campaign analysis: AI is being used to measure campaign impact by analysing data and providing actionable insights for future marketing efforts. It is also predicting which tactics are most effective, helping marketers refine strategies for better results.
E-commerce personalisation: 61% of consumers are willing to spend more on a brand that is providing personalised experiences. Marketers are using AI to analyse customer data on purchasing behavior to create customised offers and promotions. For example, Indian fashion e-commerce brand Myntra leverages AI to offer personalised outfit recommendations by analysing customers’ past purchases.
Sales enablement: AI is being used to assess sales calls, analysing conversations to identify areas for improvement in customer communication. By providing insights into the tone and pitch, AI helps enhance interactions, leading to better sales strategies and stronger customer relationships.
Conversational agents: AI is also being used for chatbots to provide customers with round-the-clock responses to queries related to products and offers available, reducing dependency on humans. Indian food delivery company Zomato uses AI to provide tailored restaurant recommendations., while retail company Nykaa has successfully used AI-based customer support to improve its customer loyalty.
Navigating the challenges
Despite the promising potential of AI in marketing, challenges persist, including the lack of a clear AI strategy, uncoordinated efforts among teams in implementing AI, limited governance frameworks, and inadequate risk management practices, all of which hinder optimal AI utilisation in marketing. Research has shown that 17.5% of marketers have experienced setbacks in their AI implementation due to a lack of strategy.
Maximising the business value from AI will demand that CMOs tackle these issues related to AI implementation.
How marketers can realise value
The most effective way to enhance AI outcomes is to assess which processes it will have the greatest impact on, and seamlessly integrating AI solutions into business processes. This will help marketers by offering real-time insights and adapting their workflows dynamically for optimal results.
CMOs must align their AI strategies with both business and marketing objectives to ensure cohesive efforts across teams toward a unified goal.
Integrating risk management into AI adoption is essential — companies should set up a dedicated risk function that establishes ethical protocols and addresses domain-specific risks associated with AI implementation.
Additionally, having an advanced, cloud-native, and highly scalable MarTech stack optimised for AI will not only streamline integration with existing platforms but also reduce associated costs, making AI adoption more cost-effective.
The global market value of AI-driven marketing is projected to soar from $12 billion in 2020 to an impressive $108 billion by 2028. But maximising business value from AI requires effectively addressing its critical challenges. By doing so, marketers who are currently lagging in leveraging AI for business value will be better positioned to unlock the full transformative potential of the technology.
