• by Ray Schultz , Columnist, October 19, 2022

Are writers and other creatives soon to be displaced by artificial intelligence? It could be: 82% of marketers say AI-generated content is as good as that generated by humans, according to a recent study by Capterra. 

But don’t get too upset by it — it still has not caught on.  

Only a small fraction of marketers use AI for content generation. What they do tend to use it for is email marketing: 

• Email marketing — 63%
• Advertising — 58% 
• Data analysis — 57%
• Personalization — 49%
• Audience targeting — 45%
• Media buying — 44%
• Behavioral analytics or insights — 42%
• SEO optimization — 40%
• Facial and voice recognition — 36%
• Lead generation — 34%
• Content or copywriting generation — 33%
• Real-time offer generations — 31% 
• Other — 1%

The study notes that AI poses many challenges for those attempting to use AI software: 

• Risk and governance issues — 35%
• Technology is too difficult to use or display — 31%
• Cost or obtaining funding — 30% 
• Lack of staff skills to use technology — 28% 
• Lack of sufficient data or data quality problems — 28% 
• Difficulty integrating with existing infrastructure — 26% 
• Little improvement over existing technologies — 23% 
• Lack of trust in the technology — 21%
• Unable/hard to measure performance — 21%
• Concerns over ethics or biases — 19%
• Difficulty finding use cases — 19%

Overall, 77% of marketers say the software is somewhat or very effective in accomplishing objectives. And 49% say it is successful in in generating easy to read text. 

But the road to implementation is a long one. The respondent say it took:

- Less than five months — 8%

- 3 months to less than 6 months — 24%

- 6 months to less than 12 months — 44%

- 12 months to less than 24 months — 22%

- 24 months or more — 3%

On the positive side, 88% agree that the existing tools save time and money. And 33% state that enhancing the customer experience is a key benefit.

But only 33% feel these tools generate error-free or accurate text. 

“Without human intervention, AI-generation content is prone to repeating information without understanding the nuances of communicating high-level concepts,” the study warns. “Therefore, you can’t guarantee the output will include completely original content.”

Yet they tend to spend a fair amount of time on creating content. During the average workweek, they focus on content:

25% of the time or less—14%

Half of the time—40%

75% of the time—35%

Almost all of the time—6%

As the study shows, AI is more useful for short-time content, like that used in email marketing and advertising. Overall, here are the top benefits of AI or ML content software:

Time savings—33%

Enhances user or customer experience—33% 

Better insights into trends, audience preferences, or behaviors—31% 

Better personalization—30% 

Improves data management—30%

Frees up staff for other priorities or tasks—26%

Improves or optimizes content—26%

Reduces data errors—25% 

Cost savings—25% 

Process experiences through task automation—21% 

Better scaling or repurposing of content--16% 

Capterra surveyed 185 U.S. marketers iin July 2022.