• by Ray Schultz , Columnist, March 26, 2024

American consumers are warming up to GenAI. Despite its relative newness, 53% have used it, 81% of those in their personal lives, 30% for work and 17% at school, according to a survey of 3,000 shoppers by Adobe. 

What’s more, marketers are trying to accommodate them. Of 400 professionals also polled by Adobe, 66% said they utilize GenAI in ways that could affect marketing in general and email marketing in particular, we guess. 

Of the marketers who use AI, for instance, 52% do so to generate images for constant creation, 51% to create copy ideas for marketing content and 33% to drive conversational interfaces with customers.  

However, 46% acknowledge that they are still in the experimentation stage.  

Marketers also feel AI is useful in scaling personalized customer experiences (59%), faster customer support (51%), more streamlined internal workflows (50%) and optimizing marketing budgets (43%). And 55% believe GenAI will greatly alter the marketing function within the next year.  

Meanwhile, 58% of consumers in the survey say generative AI has improved their online shopping experience. Of those polled, 52% use generative AI tools to help them purchase apparel.

Indeed, 71% of participants feel that using GenAI to produce images of them wearing a product can bolster their confidence in the purchase. 

Many apparel sites already have this function, but GenAI can only improve it.

Here's where email can play a role: In driving consumers to this capability on sites.  

Adobe Analytics detected a 304% increase in traffic to retail sites utilizing GenAI tools YoY. 

Looking forward, 66% of shoppers want brands to use their purchase history to provide more relevant shopping experiences.  

Consumers and marketers agree on one thing: At least 70% of each group feels that GenAI will never be as effective at creative as human beings.

The surveys were conducted in February.