It is undeniable that generative AI is a reality in many professional fields and is present in the daily activities of millions. When it comes to marketing, AI brings excitement and concerns; nonetheless, most marketers employ AI tools to support their tasks, from ideation and creation to data analysis and more.
HubSpot, Litmus, Rock Content, and Search Engine Journal developed the State of Marketing Report 2024, which analyzes data, trends, and insights about the world of marketing in 2024 and provides extensive information about the use of AI technology in marketing.
In this article, you will have a glimpse into the report from a marketer’s perspective.
A marketing team can fill up a big office or just a small room, but the truth is that no matter the size of the team, the range of tasks is wide, from writing to analysis. According to the report, marketers spend on average four hours on manual, administrative, or operational tasks, and 81% believe that AI can help them in their roles.
But how are marketers using it daily?
AI in a Marketer’s Routine
The report states that marketers are mostly likely to use artificial intelligence for finding ideas, repurposing content, creating copy for social media, emails, and blogs, and generating images. Using AI helps professionals do tasks faster and use their free time on other assignments.
The result can be around 2.5 hours saved per day by counting on AI tools. According to the report, 56% of marketers who use generative AI for content creation say it performs better. Here is how marketers have been using AI to save time:
- 6% to write content
- 18% to draft content
- 45% for ideas and inspiration
- 31% to create outlines
Only a small percentage of people trust AI to completely write their content. The largest portion chooses to use AI technology to build an easier method for writing, drafting, getting ideas, and creating outlines.
After using AI for months, it is still easy to identify when content is 100% written by artificial intelligence. It lacks a human touch, and we can see that the structure, words, and expressions used are mostly the same in all cases.
This lack of originality prevents content creators from using AI to write everything they need from scratch.
Indeed, the lack of a human approach to emotions and “robotic writing” concerns marketers, making it difficult to trust a machine to write a full piece of content. It may lead to some issues, like text that is not original, does not connect to business goals, or has no personalization.
That helps us understand why most marketers prefer to draft content themselves and get inspired. The report confirms this by showing that 77% of marketers felt that AI helped them craft more personalized content by merging human creativity with AI tools.
“This aligns with the prevalent trend seen in platforms like WriterAccess — an integrated model with AI tools. They use AI for initial content creation and human writers for refinement, fact-checking, and adherence with the brand’s tone and voice.” State of Marketing Report 2024
Every Rose Has Its Thorn: Top AI Concerns From Marketers
AI technology is great, but it’s not all sunshine and rainbows. According to the State of Marketing Report 2024, 60% of marketers using AI are concerned about it. Here are some of them:
- Job displacement: Automation through AI might lead to job losses in certain marketing roles.
- Bias, plagiarism, and brand safety: AI models can perpetuate biases present in the data they are trained on.
- Security risks: Data security breaches pose a threat when using AI.
- Lack of user knowledge: Marketers need proper training and understanding to effectively utilize AI tools.
These issues make sense, especially when talking about something that is new and may offer so many outcomes. As a marketer, the ones that I see that are more important to take care of are bias, plagiarism, and brand safety, which are more likely to happen when you don’t merge AI and humans.
At Rock Content, we have plenty of AI features inside WriterAccess, our content creation platform that helps professionals overcome most of the challenges above. If you want to give it a try, click here to start a free trial.
The report also brings many other insights about branding, social media, data analysis, and much more. If you want to read the full report, click here to download it!
