A recent study that was intended to shed light on the role of AI in marketing and agency work comes to the conclusion: the better one understands AI, the less one believes that it will replace humans.
A joint study by Omnicom Media Group agency PHD Worldwide and WARC surveyed 700 marketing and agency executives in 10 different countries between May and June this year to better understand their plans for integrating AI into their work.
The research is part of the media company’s overall plan to become a center for learning and experimentation in generative AI, available to all Omnicom customers and the general public.
The media agency’s global CEO Guy Marks and global head of strategy Mark Holden announced the launch of Ascension, a “generative publishing platform” powered by artificial intelligence costing in the six-figure range, but declined to provide further details.
Marks conveyed his request to customers and the public not to view the launch of Ascension as an attention-grabbing mistake or false propaganda.
Marks stressed the importance of creating a story and guiding clients and employees alike to prepare for the success ahead. Yet he also stressed the importance of prioritizing their skills and understanding within the next 30 or 60 days, as well as their ability to leverage their own talents and leverage their client organizations to achieve their goals.
Holden compared the rise of generative AI to a time of rapid change, similar to a Cambrian explosion, in which relationships between agencies and suppliers were lost due to a lack of information dissemination.
WARC’s research played a role in developing the magazine’s editorial mission and viewpoint, which covers three distinct phases of AI development over the course of the decade.
- The era of AI experimentation (2024-2026), which will be characterized by the individual use of large language and diffusion models (which Ascension uses) and the early integration of generative AI into enterprise platforms. It will be a time of pilots and refinements that ushers in the next phase.
- The Age of AI Acceleration (2026-2028), where AI “becomes a fundamental element of marketing – with more mature applications of generative AI on existing platforms. It will be used by a large portion of the workforce, albeit primarily for efficiency and effectiveness reasons,” according to Ascension. This age focuses on replacing and/or enhancing current capabilities and will lead to…
- The AI Elevation Era (2028-2030) will see the focus on more intelligent systems that make more reliable decisions and give employees more freedom to “imagine new marketing opportunities that go beyond what we can imagine today,” the study says.
Despite the deep and complex nature of agency efforts, Greg Stuart, CEO of MMA Global, an industry organization focused on AI experimentation and testing for its marketing and ad tech members, believes the reality in the field is often overwhelming.
Stuart asked about the frameworks they recommend their clients use to explore opportunities in AI. He assumed that marketers had limited knowledge and had developed their own frameworks for the task.
What information was uncovered during the investigation?
The prevalence of generative AI and its adoption rate do not match. While 35% of marketers believe it should be used extensively, only 27% use it to that extent, while agency-side survey respondents were at 36% and 26%, respectively.
The study tested respondents’ knowledge claims against their actual knowledge to determine their competency level. Although 42% of marketers reported their knowledge of generative AI was advanced, only 13.7% of all respondents answered two or more of the five quiz questions correctly.
Increasing knowledge of generative AI led to a greater awareness of the need for human involvement for success. Only 21% of respondents with higher knowledge believed that generative AI would replace action tasks performed by agencies in the short term, while 46% believed this would be the case for those with average knowledge.
Holden claimed that the more he learns about generational AI, the more boring tasks he takes on. He clarified that the process requires transforming roles into new functions rather than replacing them.
According to Stuart, an MMA pro, the results of the PHD/WARC study highlight the gap that will soon exist between marketers who have discovered AI faster than others.
