Marketers want AI to help them be more efficient and effective, not replace their human colleagues

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Is AI really coming for marketers’ jobs?

According to a study we carried out in partnership with the Wall Street Journal, not yet. And, if some jobs do suffer, it won’t be intentional. 

For 78% of survey respondents — 82 brand marketing VPs working at companies with over 100 employees — their main objective for using generative AI is to increase efficiency. But, as 64% of respondents acknowledge, what efficiency often means is cutting costs while boosting revenue. 

Inevitably, some jobs are going to be affected by this process — though, because AI still needs supervision, this is still some way away. 48% of our respondents think their teams and budgets will shrink as AI technology improves. 

That said, while the fact that any job losses will be unintentional is probably cold comfort, it’s not all doom and gloom. 

Yes, AI will increasingly be able to perform some tasks without the need for any human to do quality control. But it will also create new opportunities for marketers to get out of their comfort zones and do better work. 

64% of survey respondents think AI will make it possible for them to create new kinds of content. And 52% think the savings will come from being able to outsource high-value work like strategy to agencies, instead of paying a premium for them to do tedious, repetitive tasks. 

Of course, at the end of the day, AI is not a silver bullet. 

“It’s not about whether you use AI, but how thoughtfully you’ve integrated it,” observes NewtonX CEO Sascha Eder. “Even if openly available tools have democratized access to these technologies, it’s important to be deliberate with how you’re doing it.”