Look for ‘AI-Free’ to Become a Marketing Strategy for Some Brands
AI isn’t everything to everyone. In fact, one-fifth of brands will highlight a lack of artificial intelligence in their business and products by 2027 as a way to differentiate themselves, according to Gartner research.
In doing so, they may appeal to the 72% of consumers in the firm’s May 2023 survey who believe AI-based content generators can spread false or misleading information, a persistent obstacle in scaling the technology across retail and consumer goods.
Emily Weiss, senior principal researcher in Gartner’s marketing practice, said this consumer mistrust and lack of confidence in AI will drive some to seek out AI-free brands and interactions. As a result, select brands will “shun” AI and prioritize human positioning.
“This ‘acoustic’ concept will be leveraged to distance brands from perceptions of AI-powered businesses as impersonal and homogeneous,” explained Weiss in a statement.
With that said: 80% of advanced creative roles will be expected to use generative AI to achieve differentiated results by 2026, prompting CMOs to spend more on this talent as their own efforts are directed toward more strategic initiatives to drive business results.
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The rapid increase in generative AI also means an uptick in security investments as brands start to construct frameworks and guardrails for responsible use. As part of this, 60% of CMOs will adopt content authenticity technology, enhanced monitoring, and brand-endorsed user-generated content by 2026 to protect from genAI-prompted deception — something that General Mills is already exploring.
“As content created with GenAI tools balloons throughout marketing channels, transparency around its use will become increasingly necessary to maintain trust with customers,” noted Weiss.
Actions Vs. Words
While many consumers may not yet trust generative AI, 79% of them expect to use it for their search efforts within the next year — a behavior change that’s anticipated to significantly disrupt sales-driving search efforts. Brands’ organic search traffic will shrink by 50% or more by 2028 thanks to consumers embracing search leveraging generative AI, according to Gartner.
Weiss stressed that CMOs need to prepare for the disruption generative AI will bring to organic search strategies. “Marketing leaders whose brands rely on SEO should consider allocating resources to testing other channels in order to diversify.”
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They’ll also need to prepare for a disrupted social media environment: Half of consumers will abandon or significantly limit social media interactions by 2025 thanks to the perceived decay in the platform quality from misinformation, toxic users, and bots, according to Gartner. What’s more, over 7 in 10 consumers said greater integration of generative AI into social media will harm the user experience.
So while social media may be a top investment channel for digital marketing, Weiss noted that consumers are actively trying to limit their use.
“As the nature of social media use and the experience of the platforms changes, CMOs must refocus their customer acquisition and loyalty retention strategies in response,” she said.
