First trend: Marketers who use AI in holistically their marketing will see significant business impact today
“Recently we partnered with Accenture to better understand what it takes to be an AI-first company – and more importantly – if doing so reaps material business benefits. The study surveyed marketers across various markets in APAC to help uncover business use cases around leveraging AI in marketing, to evaluate the impact of these use cases and investments.
Accenture scored respondents and categorized companies into 4 categories:
- Explorers, who are just getting started
- Adopters, who have built readiness and are beginning to implement in some workstreams.
- Leaders, who are fully ready and implementing across a number of workstreams.
- ‘Pioneers’ who show a high degree of readiness and implementation
It’s truly encouraging to see AI making a tangible difference in the here and now. Our survey reveals that 73% of businesses which moved from Explorer to Adopter are already experiencing positive outcomes – from boosting revenue to enhancing creativity. It’s particularly striking that these early adopters are witnessing these benefits across various aspects of their operations, with impacts on revenue generation, efficiency, productivity, customer experience, and even fostering a culture of innovation. This underscores the transformative power AI can have in the present, not just as a distant promise.”
— Geia Lopez, Head of Data, Insights, and International Growth, Southeast Asia
Second trend: AI will continue to be only as good as the data you feed it
In today’s marketing landscape, conversations about AI inevitably lead to discussions about first-party data and measurement. This trend will only intensify as marketers increasingly rely on AI to optimize performance.
Marketers believe that AI tools can significantly alleviate their top measurement pain points, including managing and analyzing vast datasets (27%), accurately measuring return on ad spend (26%), and capturing more precise conversion data (24%).
Tools like Google Analytics 4 already embed AI-powered features such as predictive metrics, anomaly detection, and automated insights are already making it easier for marketers to starting tapping into the power of AI.
First-party data is the essential fuel that amplifies AI’s ability to uncover user insights, identify high-value audiences, and accurately measure customer lifetime value. It allows marketers to shift from analyzing historical trends to acting on predictive insights like customer churn or purchase likelihood, enabling true outcome-based marketing.
The good news is that most organizations already possess a wealth of first-party marketing data, including customer surveys, reviews, transaction history, and loyalty program data. The key lies in identifying the most valuable sources and ensuring this data is integrated into systems that can fully leverage its potential. As AI continues to evolve, the strategic use of first-party data will be a crucial differentiator for marketers looking to achieve sustainable growth and success.
— Neel Murty, Head of Measurement Solutions, South-East Asia
Third trend: AI will supercharge the creatives
“Consumers are spread across a huge digital landscape, requiring millions of creative touchpoints and variations to truly connect with them at a relevant and personal level.
The exciting thing about AI is that it can touch every single aspect of creative to allow for those consumer connections – from generating insights, brainstorming, creating to scaling.
Take this as an example: we all know that in today’s age of digital, a critical way to build a portfolio of hypercontextual creatives that solve for thousands of use cases is to move away from manually crafting individual ads and toward AI-powered creative tools.
That’s why we’ve continued to improve AI-powered asset generation for Performance Max. These help you generate more on-brand text and image assets for your campaign in just a few clicks. We’re improving these asset generation capabilities with Gemini, Google’s most capable AI model. With Gemini, you can quickly create diverse, relevant assets that improve your Ad Strength. We found that advertisers who improve their PMax Ad Strength to Excellent see 6% more conversions on average. That’s just about the easiest 6% you will ever find!”
— Shabana Badami, Head Performance Solutions, South East Asia
