Report: 80% of B2B Marketers See AI Revolutionizing Their Industry Within Five Years
As the extensive list of marketing solutions continues to expand, new data shows that artificial intelligence (AI) could become a go-to tool for B2B marketers.
A survey conducted by Demandbase and Wakefield Research found that 80 percent of B2B marketers believe that AI will revolutionize marketing within the next five years.
About 60 percent believe that it can provide them with more insight into their accounts, and 56 percent say that it can give a more detailed analysis of their campaigns. Fifty-three percent think that AI will help identify prospective clients, and the same percentage assume it will expedite daily tasks.
However, B2B marketers are still unsure of how they will integrate AI moving forward, according to the research. Just 26 percent are “very confident” that they will understand how to use AI for marketing purposes. Approximately 60 percent are concerned about integrating it into existing technology, and 54 percent are unsure of how to train employees.
“This data reveals that in order to be successful, marketing leaders need to lead the charge and present opportunities for AI instruction and experience for their teams, to ensure implementing it into their B2B technology stacks is effective,” said Aman Naimat, senior vice president of technology at Demandbase.
Forecasting the Future of Marketing
Looking ahead to 2020, Marketo and The Economist Intelligence Unit conducted a report among CMOs to dig deeper into what they predict for the coming years.
By 2020, about 63 percent of CMOs said they believed social media would be a leading channel through which clients could experience marketing efforts. The CMOs also predicted mobile apps (47 percent) and mobile web (46 percent) to become more dominant within the next three years.
“Technology’s rapid evolution allows customers to engage with brands across myriad new channels in real time, translating to billions of marketing-driven touch points,” said Sanjay Dholakia, chief marketing officer, Marketo.