Marketers, business leaders increase use of AI

Microsoft founder and billionaire Bill Gates made headlines last week when he published a personal blog saying, “The age of AI has begun” and further commented that AI is as revolutionary a technology as mobile phones, computers and the Internet.

“Entire industries will re-orient around it. Businesses will distinguish themselves in how well they use it,” Gates said.

AI is being adopted by professionals and businesses far and wide, and investments in generative AI startups have skyrocketed to $5.9 billion since the beginning of 2022, up from $1.5 billion in 2020, according to Pitchbook.

But it isn’t just a boom in interest and investment happening. There is growing use among businesses and professionals hoping to get a competitive advantage in early adoption.

About 4,500 professionals from companies such as Amazon, Bank of America, Edelman, Google, IBM, JP Morgan, McKinsey, Meta, Nike, Twitter and thousands of others took part in a survey conducted by Fishbowl, a social platform owned by employer review site Glassdoor. It revealed that marketers lead in adoption for copywriting, generate ideas and summarize research, while health care had the lowest adoption among industry professionals.

There are also generational differences. Generation Z professionals have the highest rate of adoption, with 29% having used it at work, followed by Generation X with 28% and Millennials with 27%.

“Anybody who doesn’t use this will shortly be at a severe disadvantage. Like, shortly. Like, very soon,” Jeff Maggioncalda, chief executive of online learning platform Coursera, told CNN.

Businesses understand this also. In a separate survey conducted last year by Deloitte for its fifth annual “State of AI in the Enterprise,” 79% of businesses said they had successfully deployed at least three different kinds of AI.

Even more who have not deployed it understand the importance of AI in the near future. 94% of business leaders surveyed agree that AI is critical to success over the next five years.

Deloitte surveyed 2,620 global business leaders representing six industry areas and dozens of sectors. Top challenges associated with scaling according to respondents are managing AI-related risk (50%), lack of executive commitment (50%), lack of maintenance and post-launch support (50%).

This post was written fully by a human author. As our commitment to transparency, we will always disclose when AI is used in content creation.