The vast majority of UK brands are embracing artificial intelligence (AI), but a lack of skills within their teams is making it difficult to get the most out of the technology, according to research from Braze.
The customer engagement platform carried out a survey of over 1,900 senior marketers and found that 92% are eagerly embracing AI. However, more than half (52%) identify a lack of data skills among marketing talent as a major issue, preventing them from fully exploring the technology for customer engagement. And an even larger number (57%) point to the challenge of working with internal data scientists or business intelligence teams who lack an understanding of marketing priorities.
“With AI at the forefront of the agenda across markets, it is essential brands are utilising it in the right way, or risk being left behind. To capitalise on the potential, we must boost the education of data skills, both in our marketing education at university, and in the workplace,” said James Manderson, SVP, Customer Success at Braze.
“The problem is going to get worse in the future if marketers are not built to understand and manage data correctly. This is not just important for marketers but should also be built into the skillset of CEOs and CMOs. A lack of crucial AI skills means businesses are missing out on the key opportunity to not only harness these skills, but ensure they are being used correctly.”
Though brands are lacking the necessary internal and/or external expertise, UK marketers are already leveraging – or planning to leverage – AI for a number of important tasks, including optimising strategies in real-time (53%), generating creative ideas (50%), automating repetitive tasks (49%), enhancing data analysis (49%), personalising campaign messaging (46%), and utilising predictive analytics (43%).
