AI Adoption in Marketing and Manufacturing Sectors

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Generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) has emerged as the next productivity frontier. With its transformative potential, GenAI is poised to change how businesses operate. However, each industry is responding differently to AI as they face some unique challenges. The AI adoption across industries is influenced by different factors including the industry’s economic outlook and appetite to embrace change. 

Marketers are Quick to Adopt GenAI 

According to a report by Capgemini Research Institute, almost 60 percent of organizations are implementing or exploring GenAI for marketing use cases. Around three-quarters of organizations have either already allocated a budget to integrate GenAI into marketing or plan to do so in the next six months. 

The report is based on a survey of 1,800 executives overseeing marketing strategies across diverse organizations worldwide. The research for the report included in-depth interviews with Chief Marketing Officers and marketing leaders who are familiar with their organization’s AI initiatives. 

One of the key findings of the report is that marketers are confident that AI will help augment human creativity by enhancing unique human qualities such as contextual understanding, intuition, and emotion. 

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According to Gagandeep Gadri, Managing Director of Frog, part of Capgemini Invent, “The future of marketing will undeniably be influenced by the widespread adoption of generative AI to deliver personalized content and communication; its value realization will need a fusion of strategic choices, human-centered creativity and a good understanding of the art of the possible in a very fast-moving space.”

The Capgemini report underscores the importance of bridging the AI skills gap and reveals that the majority of organizations (71 percent) are aware of this and expect certain marketing roles to be impacted by AI. To address this challenge, more than half (53 percent) of companies are planning to provide GenAI training for their marketing team in the next six months.

As AI algorithms become increasingly sophisticated, there is rising concern about the ethical and regulatory issues surrounding marketing. The Capgemini research shows that less than one-third (30 percent) have clear guidance for the use of AI systems. Addressing ethical and regulatory issues will be key to the long-term success of GenAI in marketing. 

Manufacturing is Lagging in AI Adoption 

While marketers have been quick to find ways to integrate AI into their processes, research shows that the manufacturing sector is slow to adopt AI. 

According to the latest Sikich Industry Pulse report, more than 60 percent of manufacturing executives are uncertain if AI will have any benefit to their organization or have not found any approved use cases for AI.  The report also revealed that less than 20 percent of manufacturers have begun to implement AI technologies in their operations. 

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Interestingly, the manufacturing sector is still struggling to find and retain labor – a deficit that AI could combat. However, only 7 percent of manufacturing executives are actively looking to fill or have already filled open roles with AI technology. 

The report reveals that one of the unexpected challenges for AI adoption in manufacturing is cybersecurity. Around one-third (34 percent) of respondents shared that their organization faced a cyber threat in the past five years. 

“Manufacturers are a prime target for hackers and vulnerable to ransomware in particular because of their need to avoid factory shutdowns,” said Thomas Freeman, Director of Sikich’s cybersecurity practice. “Hackers have many ways they can break into a company’s systems – from phishing scams to DNS attacks. A thorough defense that includes firewalls, regular security audits, penetration testing, security training, and threat intelligence is necessary to thwart attacks and protect company data.”

Sikich surveys manufacturers multiple times throughout the year on a range of topics to create industry benchmark data. The latest report was compiled through a study of more than 100 business executives from the manufacturing sector. 

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