Despite Marketer Investment In AI, Studies Find Awareness Remains Low

Increasingly, marketers are investing in artificial intelligence for content generation and customizing user journeys.

Despite this excitement, AI awareness among the general population remains relatively low, several studies find.

Research from Gartner in March, on why people’s opinions of ChatGPT impact brands, found that more than half (53%) of the 320 respondents have not yet heard of the AI tool.

Another study highlights the perception gap between brands and consumers. In an upcoming report by customer engagement platform Twilio on the State of Personalization, 81% of 500 businesses surveyed feel that recent AI tech, including ChatGPT, Google’s Bard, and AI-powered Bing, has the potential to positively impact customer experiences.

However, 59% of the 3,001 people surveyed said they aren’t comfortable with AI being used to customize their experiences, according to the report seen by Adweek.

“As marketers are racing to experiment with AI-powered personalization, they also need to prioritize thoughtful and responsible implementations,” said Joyce Kim, CMO at Twilio. “It’s a clear opportunity to move with the times by embracing first-party data as well as real-time data tools that can help manage data effectively.”

Below are charts that capture people’s awareness, where they place trust and their expectations on who should regulate AI.

Use of AI-enabled tools does not lead to awareness

The University of Queensland and KPMG surveyed people across 17 countries and found that 68% had used these common AI-enabled technologies, such as social media, chatbots and virtual assistants, yet two in five people (45%) were unaware that these tools were using AI. The use of AI does not necessarily translate into an increased understanding.

But there was more awareness of AI among people (75%) when used in voice activation through virtual assistants or for facial recognition (70%).

Despite low awareness of the AI-based tool ChatGPT, its use as a search engine is growing, rivaling that of traditional search engines.

Data by Similar Web shows that ChatGPT is ahead of Bing (957 million visits) and DuckDuckGo (857.6 million) in worldwide traffic, although it lags behind Google.

At the beginning of the year, Microsoft invested in OpenAI, the company ChatGPT, and has been integrating ChatGPT features into its products like Office, browser Edge and search engine Bing. The latter has 100 million daily users and has seen downloads jump since the addition of AI features, CEO Satya Nadella said to investors on its earnings call this week

People are more comfortable with AI in healthcare

Increasingly, concerns are growing around AI algorithms containing biases, knocking on peoples’ trust in using AI within certain industries.

The study by Queensland University found nearly 44% of people trust AI significantly more for use in the healthcare industry. In comparison, the least trusted use of AI was in HR at 34%.

Similarly in the Gartner research, 57% of consumers expressed concerns that AI-based content generators like ChatGPT could spread false or misleading information.

Further, two-thirds of people said that it’s of the utmost importance that brands explicitly label whether the content they publish includes the help of AI.

“Marketers need to think about how they can take their companies’ brand and data to leverage these models,” said Nicole Greene, vp analyst in the Gartner Marketing Practice.

By 2027, Gartner expects 80% of enterprise marketers will establish a dedicated content authenticity function to combat misinformation and fake material.

People strongly believe AI needs regulation

Most people believe AI regulation is required and expect some form of independent oversight, with 71% disagreeing with the statement that AI does not need regulation. But consensus on who that should fall to is split.

Responses are fairly even across three different answers: AI being regulated by governments; independent bodies or the industries that develop and use AI. The strongest sentiment believes that AI should be co-regulated by more than one of these three.

Meanwhile, the research found emerging economies displayed a higher trust in AI on average, such as Brazil (56%), China (77%) and South Africa (57%).

Despite the hesitation to trust in Finland, the use of AI (39%) is higher than the worldwide average (33%).

“Finland really pushed on the need for an independent regulator to oversee AI adoption, rather than a government body,” said Jonathan Merry, CEO, BanklessTimes. “Perhaps the key issue is not whether the algorithms are biased or whether the software is faulty. But whether we repose trust in those who deliver it, vet it, and regulate it.”