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As marketers and consumers simultaneously adopt Artificial Intelligence (AI) services and applications, the dynamic of the process of exchange between the buyer and seller in the marketplace is being fundamentally altered. Initially the Internet and then social media radically altered the differential advantages held by marketer and consumers in the marketing game. Traditionally, marketing was something done to the consumer. Products were pushed. Communication was one-way and intrusive. Commercial messages were brief, designed as much to entertain as to inform and often provided the consumer with little more than a catch phrase in the guise of a slogan or jingle. With the advent of the Internet and emergence of social media, the communication pattern of the marketing game expanded from strictly “outbound” with the marketer “targeting” the customer and doing all the talking, to include “inbound,” wherein the consumer searches, contact and transacts with the seller. Consumers can now find (via Google) and buy (via Amazon) most anything, anytime, anywhere. The “word from our sponsor'” matters much less than the recommendations of friends, family or other customers. Marketers no longer can simply buy consumers’ interest or patronage; it must be earned. However, as significant and swift as this change has been (given that social media is but a decade old), arguably a much greater change is now upon us with the advent of AI. As marketers and consumers begin to fully avail themselves of the services and advantages that AI agents and applications proffer, the nature and process of marketing is being fundamentally altered. In the broadest sense of the term artificial Intelligence, “as a type of computer science focuses on creating systems that automate “intelligent” processes - human-esque tasks like decision making, problem solving and learning. Basically, AI enables computers to do things that – without it – require human intervention” (Refaat, 2017).
This paper will review the emerging patterns of adoption and rates of diffusion of AI applications by both marketers and consumers. On the marketers’ side the authors will address the single most defining phenomenon that is affecting the marketer's role and function in the marketing process: The exponential increase in the number, variety and capability of marketing applications, platforms and services that perform, control, influence and/or integrate virtually every marketing task and decision. Defined by Scott Brinker (2017), as the Marketing Technology (MarTech) Landscape, there are now more than 5,000 of these “technology solutions” that are classified and delineated across the functional domains, such as advertising and promotion, content and experience, social and relationships, commerce and sales, data, and management.
Brinker began monitoring the emergence of marketing technologies and related software products in 2011 when the first Marketing Technology (MarTech) Landscape infographic was published with 150 services identified. In 2015, the number grew to 2,000. In 2016, it nearly doubled to the 3,500 mark. The final statistic for 2017 was 5,381 solutions from 4,891 unique companies, up 40% over the previous year.
Commensurate with the dramatic growth in marketing technology services and applications have been increased levels of interest, adoption and expenditure. Since 2015 (when $5 billion was spent on cognitive/AI software capabilities) there has been an ongoing exponential increase in expenditures with investment projected to reach $19.1 billion in 2018 and forecast to grow at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 46.2% to $52.2 billion by 2021 (IDC, 2018).