Take the 2018 State of Artificial Intelligence (AI) in Personalization Survey

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Over the course of 2017, I watched with fascination as interest in artificial intelligence (AI) grew exponentially in the world of digital marketing. AI refers to the ability of machines to make decisions the way humans do. In other words, rather than using hardwired, programmed instructions, computers consider all available relevant inputs, including past outcomes of decisions made, to make a decision. This is no flash in the pan thing — interest in AI hasn’t begun to subside as time goes by. If anything, that interest has intensified.

In the world of applying AI to the personalization of customer experiences, AI takes data from all available data sources and applies machine learning algorithms to process that data and determine what experience will work best for a given person at a given point in time — even considering the device they’re using. Essentially, it’s automating experience optimization at a one-to-one level.

Many brands have jumped into using AI to personalize and optimize the customer experience. Others may just be reaching the point where, regardless of the real or perceived barriers to leveraging AI, they’ve determined that business success and survival depends on using it. Still, others may be on the fence or not even considering it. Numerous surveys and research reports, like this McKinsey report, have assessed attitudes about, uses of, and barriers to using AI. For example, the McKinsey report shows that technology and financial services companies lead the charge with applying AI to the customer experience, while travel and tourism companies lag. These reports make a mark on the timeline by which we can measure the state of AI.

All this makes me super curious about what digital marketers are doing and thinking when it comes to using AI to automate personalization of the customer experience. Do they tend to use it more or less than surveys and reports indicate? What reservations about its use do they have, and in what ways are they using it or planning to use it?

To answer these questions and many others, we just launched a survey designed to capture the current state of AI in personalization. The survey, which takes about 10 minutes to complete, includes questions designed to assess, for example:

Upon conclusion of the survey at the end of February, we’ll analyze the results and share some of our findings at Adobe Summit and in a summary report. We’ll also use those findings to figure out how we can help our customers start, further embrace, or get even more value from using AI in their personalization and optimization activities.

AI has such incredible potential for digital marketing. I think of it this way, if a machine using AI can now beat the world’s top players of complex, strategy-driven games like Go, chess, Scrabble, and Othello, and will likely soon better diagnose skin cancer and other cancers than a seasoned doctor, it can probably beat even the smartest marketer at optimizing experiences for each customer.

If you are an digital marketer, we’d love to encourage you to take the 2018 State of AI in Personalization survey. As a small token of our appreciation for taking the survey, upon its completion we’ll send you an email with a Starbucks gift card, and once the report has been published, we’ll send you a copy of it. Thanks in advance for your participation.