AI is poised to transform everything in marketing from ad creation to targeting and even the future role of agencies in the advertising ecosystem.

Several weeks ago, Amazon announced Nova Act, an AI model that can search for products, add to cart, and make purchases on someone’s behalf without intervention. As AI agents like Nova Act become more popular, marketers will need to target not only people, but the machines operating on their behalf, using a strategy called machine-to-machine—or M2M—marketing.

Intuit Mailchimp used AI to create a B2B marketing campaign focusing on the “clustomer,” the amorphous and diverse audience brands must reach with ads. The resulting ad performed in the top 5% of Ipsos ads, a success which Intuit Mailchimp CMO Michelle Taite attributed to the team’s willingness to experiment with AI.

38% of US adults think AI can customize content people see online better than humans can, but 62% say the tech is the same as or worse than real people, according to Gallup and Bentley University.

“The misconception in my mind is that you can ignore [generative AI],” Vincent Yates, chief data scientist of consulting firm Credera, said at Advertising Week New York 2023.

Most companies worldwide either haven’t adopted AI and machine learning (ML) yet or are still in the research phases. In North America, 42% of companies haven’t implemented AI or ML, while 22% are rolling it out and 21% are scaling up the technology, according to a June Workday survey.

Most market researchers do not think AI will take over completely, according to SurveyMonkey. Some 38% of US market researchers think that AI will take over data visualization completely, but more people (46%) believe that AI will assist while humans remain in control.

“[AI] really does raise the bar in terms of what people are going to expect from you,” our analyst Jeremy Goldman said on our recent “ChatGPT and Generative AI” panel. As AI matures, it will become more specialized, automating mundane tasks, ushering in personalization, and changing the way consumers, retailers, and marketers use the internet. Here are eight predictions for that not-so-distant future.

Global spending on AI-centric systems—including the software, hardware, and services for these systems—will increase 27% this year to reach $154 billion, according to the International Data Corporation (IDC).

Nearly half (49%) of US adults are interested in AI-powered online search capabilities, per Morning Consult. Other popular applications of AI technology include recipes, roadside assistance, smart assistants, and product design based on consumer trends.

Of Microsoft’s $198 billion in revenues last year, only about 6% came from advertising. Could a revamped Bing help build out this revenue stream? It’s hard to imagine, but not impossible. Here are five charts that look at Microsoft’s latest ad moves.

AI chatbot ChatGPT and digital portrait generator Lensa have seen a lot of hype over the last couple of weeks. There’s every chance their buzz is a passing fad. What’s not a passing fad? The use of generative AI in marketing, which will increase significantly over the next few years.

Last week, Shutterstock announced a partnership with OpenAI, integrating the DALL-E 2 text-to-image AI generator into its platform.

AI applications are becoming more common across functions including supply chain, product, and back office. Brands are using AI tools to generate deep customer insights, track supplier pricing, and more.

In the US, 56% of executives believe AI technology comes with either significant or somewhat significant potential risk. Another 19% view the risk as moderate, while 26% think the threat is minimal. No executive surveyed believes AI is entirely without risk.

A new set of regulations on AI recommendation algorithms went into effect in China on March 1 in an attempt to introduce unprecedented oversight and inject transparency and accountability into an opaque industry. This is the first case of a major economy enforcing such sweeping rules on the machine, and the world is watching.

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