Creatives and marketers are keen on AI, at least compared with most professions

About three in 10 marketing and creative professions think generative AI will have a positive impact on their careers.

Consulting firm Robert Half surveyed more than 1,140 workers in Canada, including 125 in the marketing and creative fields, finding that 31% of marketers and creative professionals feel that generative AI will have a positive impact on their career.

While that may not seem like a lot, that is ahead of the 27% of workers overall who said the same thing. Marketers and creative talent were only behind tech workers, at 38%, as the field most optimistic about the possibilities generative AI offers.

The reasons for optimism include automating time-consuming tasks (36%) and bolstering efficiency and productivity (26%).

It’s not all positive, though: 20% of marketers and creatives feel generative AI will render their skills obsolete, compared with 17% of workers generally. A larger group of respondents, at 26%, believe feel it “will have no impact” on job prospects, with 23% still unsure.

The survey found that the relative optimism among marketers and creatives may be linked to the fact that field is already highly engaged with the nascent technology: 43% of marketers and creatives are currently using, or are planning to use, generative AI to help them with resume writing and keyword optimization, whilst 42% intend on using it to improve their LinkedIn or online profiles. The survey also reveals that 38% are using generative AI for finding and researching job prospects.

In a separate survey of 232 marketing and creative hiring managers across Canada, the top ways marketing and creative teams are currently using the technology are writing copy for
campaigns, social media or communications (56%) and conducting A/B testing to determine the most effective marketing strategies (55%).

“Generative AI comes with many questions about both its potential and its risks, and it’s natural for professionals and businesses to have mixed feelings about its impact,” says David King, senior managing director for Robert Half in Canada and South America. “Understanding how it can be leveraged for both workers’ and employers’ benefit, along with considering its drawbacks, is crucial at this time.”

Unsurprisingly, Gen Z and Millennial workers are the more keen about generative AI than older generations.

Generative AI has been in the spotlight this year as platforms like ChatGPT and Dall-E have made the technology’s capabilities more apparent, both to the general public and the businesses. Major agency holding companies and tech companies have been developing and evolving their own AI tools in search of greater efficiency. But it has also come with concerns, ranging from the loss of human jobs to the quality of work being produced to copyright issues to harming society. Generative AI has also been a focal point of creative fields outside of marketing, with its use being a key sticking point in the ongoing WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes in the U.S.