About 63% of marketing leaders have strategic plans to invest in generative artificial intelligence (AI) within the next 24 months, as indicated by findings from a survey conducted by Gartner Inc.
In an announcement on Wednesday (Aug 23), the consulting firm highlighted that slightly over half of the surveyed respondents (56%) view the potential rewards of generative AI to outweigh the associated risks.
Gartner’s survey, conducted between May and June 2023 and involving 405 marketing leaders, unveiled that the utilisation of their organisations’ comprehensive marketing technology (martech) stack capabilities has declined to a mere 33% on average in 2023. This marks the second consecutive year of decrease (down from 42% in 2022 and 58% in 2020).
Benjamin Bloom, Gartner Marketing Practice Vice-President Analyst, acknowledged that chief marketing officers (CMOs) are keenly aware of both the possibilities and challenges tied to generative AI.
He noted, “There’s a clear tension between investing more in the current tech stack to drive utilisation, or reallocating their finite resources towards the coming crop of generative AI applications that may not suffer from the same utilisation problems.”
Gartner’s 2023 CMO Spend and Strategy Survey disclosed that organisations are allocating 25.4% of their 2023 marketing budget to technology.
The consulting firm emphasised that with the sharp decline in martech utilisation, organisations will inevitably face cost optimization pressure, considering that marketers are employing only a third of the technological capabilities while dedicating a quarter of their entire budget.
In contrast, Gartner found that for the minority of organisations that utilise more than 50% of their martech stack, the likelihood of being asked to cut their martech budget is significantly lower.
Gartner underscored the challenge of enhancing martech utilisation within organisations: merely 11% of the surveyed respondents reported an increase of more than 10% in their utilisation of marketing technology in 2023 compared to the previous year.
The consulting firm identified the complexity of the current ecosystem, issues related to customer data, and rigid governance as the most common obstacles reported by survey participants hindering greater utilisation of their martech stack. Bloom emphasised that marketers often adopt new technologies without a structured approach for their implementation.
He cautioned, “Combined with multi-year contracts, under-utilised or abandoned technology can easily result in an unwieldy stack over time. CMOs should press martech teams to find opportunities to simplify so the rest of the function can flourish. Cutting underused technology within the current stack can also preserve some ‘dry powder’ for transformative applications that aren’t yet generally available.”
