Most Aussie marketers already using generative AI at work, research finds
A survey by technology giant Salesforce has found that 71% of Australian marketers are already using generative AI for their work, saying the technology is transforming their roles while also being wary of its accuracy.
Salesforce surveyed 342 Australian marketers as part of its Generative AI Snapshot Series, finding that an additional 14% of the same respondents were also planning to use the technology soon.
The survey also found 18% said they don’t know how to safely use the technology and are concerned about accuracy, saying generative AI would still need human oversight, as well as proper training and trusted customer data to use the technology more effectively.
And 39% of the respondents don’t know how to safely use generative AI.
“Generative AI is completely reshaping our world and revolutionising how marketers work,” Salesforce Asia Pacific chief marketing officer Leandro Perez said.
“Marketers looking to reap big productivity gains need to focus on getting their data in order by unifying their first-party data sets and leveraging trusted AI innovations to ensure safety and accuracy.”
Australian marketers reported they have been using the technology for basic tasks like content creation and copywriting (74% and 73% of respondents), but 66% said they see a “wholesale overhaul” of their work on the horizon, saying generative AI is “a game changer”.
Respondents said some of the reasons for this belief include the technology’s ability to transform how they analyse data, personalise messaging content, build marketing campaigns and build/optimise SEO strategy.
The marketers said they expect generative AI would help save time and help focus on more strategic work, estimating the technology would save them close to six hours per week of work, the equivalent of over a month per year.
On accuracy, 67% of the marketers said their company’s data is not properly set up for generative AI, despite 79% of them saying trusted customer data was important for the successful use of generative AI at work.
Salesforce CEO of AI Clara Shih said: “Data is fuel for AI — without high-quality, trusted data, it becomes ‘garbage in, garbage out.’ AI pulling from data sources that are irrelevant, unrepresentative, or incomplete can create bias, hallucinations, and toxic outputs.”
A potential barrier the respondents found was generative AI’s lack of human creativity and contextual knowledge, and they believe human oversight was needed to successfully use generative AI in their role.
Another is the lack of training, where some respondents have said they feel unprepared to take full advantage of generative AI. Some 69% reported their employer does not yet provide generative AI training.
Alongside the survey, Salesforce also unveiled a number of generative AI product offerings for campaigns, e-commerce and customer service.
Its new Marketing GPT offering allows marketers to build more effective marketing work, including automatically generating personalised emails and smarter audience segments. Commerce GPT allows brands to build automated personalised shopping experiences, custom-tailored promotional offers and connected purchasing journeys.
Salesforce also integrated WhatsApp into its Service Cloud customer service product, which is now also integrated into Salesforce Customer 360. The tech giant also announced an extended partnership with Google Cloud with the aim of democratising AI capabilities.
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