• by Laurie Sullivan , Staff Writer @lauriesullivan, March 6, 2023

GWI, a market and audience research company, conducted research on synthetic media such as text, images, and artificial intelligence (AI) and found that in advertising, 22% of executives are interested in AI, 18% are worried about AI, and 12% are concerned that AI will take their job.

The survey, which examines the digital behaviors of American internet users ages 16 and older, is updated four times annually with 80,000 participants. GWI USA has a quarterly sample of 20,000 and is representative of approximately 240 million internet users.

In marketing, 23% of executives are interested in AI, while 17% are concerned about AI taking their job.

Aimclear founder Marty Weintraub in an earlier conversation said he was less concerned about marketers losing their jobs to AI and more worried about them losing their jobs to marketers who know how to use AI.

The top sectors that are interested in AI include Software Development and Computer Engineering at 37%, Electronics at 34%, and Creative Services at 30%.

Some 70% of consumers do not approve or disapprove of the use of synthetic media such as AI -- showing that the average consumer is still on the fence about the technology.

Chris Beer, data journalist and storyteller at GWI, points to creative services as the advertising sector with the greatest concerns. “They are concerned about how it will affect overall creativity,” he said. “Some think it will make them twice as good as they would normally be or take away their job completely.”

For example, Beer writes blogs on a regular basis for work and has been bouncing ideas off ChatGPT.

“I’ve written sentences for blogs, but sometimes they might not be as conversational as I would like, so I enter the sentence in ChatGPT and ask it to make suggestions around where they can be improved,” he says.  

Timing of technologies

Beer says people have become more interested in AI during the past two years, and that a connection is needed between the CPVOD-19 pandemic, the time people spent in lockdown and technology.

He says the timing of the technologies released is interesting -- adding that this is one reason why they have become so popular. “Many are not sure how to feel about it,” he says. “And we’re seeing it in real-time.”

Differences among demographics

It is interesting to consider the effects that AI may have on search and search-engine optimization, Beer says. Younger generations -- Gen Z -- have become more interested in other types of search experiences.

In the U.S., Gen Z consumers use Instagram more than Google, he says. This age group does not use Google and the 10 blue links to search out information as much as older generations.