Generative AI (GenAI) offers marketers an unprecedented opportunity to enhance customer engagement and streamline content creation. But integrating GenAI into marketing activities is not a cut-and-dried affair. A strategic approach is essential.

Before marketers dive in, they should be clear on how the tech will be used and integrated into their martech stack. More importantly, they should ensure a clear and robust governance framework is in place.

New research from marketing software provider SAS and research agency Coleman Parkes of 1,600 global organizations shows widespread embrace of GenAI for marketing tasks, as well as concerns about its implications. 

Three-quarters of the companies surveyed reported using GenAI, with the remainder planning to adopt it within the next two years. The use of GenAI for crucial marketing activities is expected to double over the next 12 months, with 90% of organizations reporting that they plan to invest in it further. The research also shows that marketing is ahead of other business functions, including IT, in the adoption of GenAI. 

However, many marketers are still only using it for simple tasks such as copywriting, editing and content creation. For more sophisticated marketing tasks, respondents reported much lower use: 

• Building audiences: 18%
• Customer journey mapping: 16%
• Price optimization: 14% 
• Audience targeting: 19% 

Bridging the GenAI knowledge and governance gap

While marketers reported high rates of GenAI use, leaders of the organizations using it reported low familiarity with how the tech was being adopted in their companies and the strategy behind it. Additionally, nine out of 10 leaders surveyed reported not fully understanding GenAI and its potential to affect business processes. Of those, chief information officers (CIOs) were most likely to report understanding their organization’s GenAI adoption strategy, while only 36% of chief technology officers (CTOs) reported being fully aware of their organization’s GenAI adoption strategy. 

In addition to a knowledge gap about the potential and actual use of GenAI, respondents noted concerns about data privacy, security and governance, ethics and customer trust. The top marketer concerns about GenAI were data privacy (61%) security (61%) governance (48%) along with other items like ethics and customer trust. Lisa Loftis, principal product marketer for customer intelligence at SAS, says that effective governance programs are essential for responsibly implementing AI and GenAI and establishing clear policies and responsibilities across departments. She notes that SAS has a specific governance program that reinforces best practices tied to oversight and controls. It helps ensure SAS software is developed in accordance with these key principles and rigorously tested before release.  It is crucial, she says, to engage stakeholders from diverse business units to foster accountability and trust while mitigating risks.

“The most important components to establishing GenAI governance programs are a clear definition of the policies and a clear delineation of responsibilities around those policies and securing the ongoing participation of everyone who needs to be involved,” Loftis explains. “This includes business representation as well as IT and should also include people with the authority to enforce these policies.” 

Adopting AI with an advantage 

Loftis says the complexity of martech today and the ever-increasing need to prove ROI are serious roadblocks to successfully integrating GenAI into marketing processes.

According to the SAS and Coleman Parkes survey, proving GenAI’s ROI was a challenge. A third of respondents noted that their organizations struggled to push integration of the tech from proof-of-concept to full use. Loftis says SAS Customer Intelligence 360, a comprehensive customer engagement platform, can simplify martech integration issues and make proving ROI easier because its platform can take data from anywhere in order to use the most relevant information. She also notes that because SAS has grown organically (not through acquisition), its components work together seamlessly because they are built to complement one another.

Successfully integrating GenAI into martech stacks requires a strategic approach, including understanding the system’s existing martech capabilities, evaluating data integration and accessibility, conducting thorough use case evaluations, and defining the success metrics needed when integrating GenAI.

“We empower brands to practice responsible marketing across all aspects of the marketing processes including, but not limited to, AI and GenAI,” she notes. 

For more information on working with SAS please visit sas.com

For participation options in strategy‘s Marketer’s Guide to AI contact associate publisher Neil Ewen at newen@brunico.com