Original data from 1.35k professionals and expert insights to help you leverage AI for your business.
Written by: Sara Friedman
“It’s the biggest thing since the internet.”
“This is the modern-day industrial revolution.”
“This will change everything.”
You’ve heard about it from co-workers and leadership teams, read about it in the media, and seen it splashed across social media platforms: artificial intelligence.
But how will leaders use this new technology on the ground to innovate, scale, and improve their businesses? And what new opportunities will arise?
To answer that question, HubSpot Blog Research polled 1.35k+ business professionals in the US, including marketers, sales pros, bloggers, and customer support specialists in March 2023 on AI and automation.
You’ll also hear from experts at HubSpot, Jasper, Zapier, and more on everything from employing AI to make better written content and videos to using AI-powered tools to become a more productive leader.
1. How Business Professionals Across Industries Are Using AI
HubSpot’s data makes one thing clear: AI is not a far-off pipe dream; it’s here, and it’s already being used in the day-to-day operations of real businesses.
From C-suites and marketing teams to sales, customer service, and blog teams, AI and automation is being used in unique ways across varied business use cases.
Below, we break down the data by business specialty:
Leadership
Business leaders are always responsible for steering the ship and making big-picture decisions, so it’s no surprise that many are already implementing AI-powered tech into their business models and teams — with 62% reporting that their company has already invested in AI/automation tools for employees to leverage in their roles.
And the trend will likely not only continue in 2023 but also steeply increase: 43% of business leaders say they plan to increase their investment in AI/automation tools over the course of 2023, and 31% of business leaders say AI/automation tools are very important to their overall business strategy.
Implementing AI tools is not just an effort to stay on trend, with 27% of business leaders reporting that their company’s investment in AI/automation tools has returned a very positive ROI, and 44% reporting a somewhat positive ROI.
In the coming year, business leaders will likely dig deeper into the many ways AI and automation can affect and improve the bottom line.
This shift will also change whom the company is hiring: Of business leaders whose companies invested in AI/automation, 66% say their company has already hired new employees specifically to help with leveraging/implementing AI/automation tools.
Marketing
As consumers increasingly seek out personalized experiences, marketers need to find ways to deliver tailored messages to individuals at scale.
AI and automation have emerged as powerful tools that can help marketers achieve this goal by streamlining processes, analyzing large amounts of data, and identifying patterns that humans might miss.
HubSpot’s data makes one thing clear: Marketers are not only ready for AI to change their industry, but also it already is:
69% of marketers say generative AI is important to their overall content marketing strategy
53% of marketers report using chatbots in their roles (ChatGPT, Bing AI, Google Bard)
44% use visual AI tools (DALL-E, Synthesia)
44% of marketers use text-generation tools (copy.ai, Compose AI)
48% report using generative AI for market research, finding data sets, and summarizing articles
45% use AI for content creation and for data analysis/reporting
And, arguably the most important stat, 79% of marketers believe generative AI can improve the quality of marketing content they create.
For a deep dive on all things marketing and AI, check out this page.
Sales
Salespeople are busy: They’re closing deals, reaching out to potential customers, and building relationships that will move the company’s bottom line.
With AI and automation, sales professionals can spend less time on administrative tasks and more time doing what only humans can do: building relationships and trust.
As far as the types of AI tools sales professionals are already using in their roles, here’s the data:
35% said they use AI tools that automate manual tasks (data entry, note taking, scheduling, etc.)
34% reported using AI tools that offer data-driven insights (sales forecasting, lead scoring, pipeline analysis, etc.)
31% of sales pros said they use generative AI tools that help write sales content or prospect outreach messages (ChatGPT, Jasper, DALL-E, etc.)
28% said they use AI tools that analyze or simulate sales calls for training/coaching purposes
26% reported using AI tools/chatbots that assist with prospect outreach/lead generation
25% said they use AI tools/chatbots that assist with qualifying leads
When it came to the tasks sales professionals use AI to assist with, the most reported answer was content creation at 18% (followed by prospect outreach and research, both at 16%). Plus, 60% of sales professionals say AI tools are important to their overall sales strategy.
Most importantly, the data shows that sales professionals feel that AI and automation will allow them to do what they do best — sell — and 67% agree that AI tools can help them spend more time selling.
Customer Support
Customer support specialists are the backbone of any good company: They are experts in communicating with customers, understanding their needs, and bettering the businesses as a whole by relaying those needs to their colleagues.
With that kind of responsibility, AI will likely put the emphasis on support in customer support by backing up the humans in those roles.
Customer service pros are ready for the assistance, with 53% saying that AI and automation tools will be important to their customer service strategy and 49% saying that by 2024, AI tools will be able to do most customer service-related tasks independently.
Automation and AI-powered tools, at their core, are created to help make the jobs of humans easier. And 67% of customer service pros think AI tools will make it easier to respond to customer service requests.
Blog/SEO
Conversations around AI often center around generative AI’s ability to produce written content, making it particularly applicable to bloggers and SEO professionals.
AI and automation can help bloggers create better content, optimize their websites, and improve their search engine rankings.
Of bloggers and SEO professionals surveyed, 35% said they strongly agree that by 2024, most SEO pros will use AI and automation in their roles (36% agree).
Also by 2024, 75% of bloggers/SEO pros agree that AI/automation tools will be able to do most SEO-related tasks completely independently.
With 70% agreeing that AI and automation tools can help them optimize their website for SEO more efficiently, AI-powered tools will become increasingly common when the goal is optimizing a website for organic content.
2. AI Tools and Applications Used Among Professionals
To more deeply understand the ways in which AI might improve our day-to-day operations at work, it’s helpful to first assess how business professionals are using the tools currently available:
69% of business professionals use communication tools (Slack, Zoom, Microsoft Teams, etc.)
40% report that they use CRM software (HubSpot, SalesForce, etc.)
21% use artificial intelligence/automation tools (chatbots, Jasper, ZoomInfo, Marketo, Grammarly, Gong.io, etc.)
27% say they use project management tools (Monday, Asana, etc.)
When it comes to AI, there are several subfields:
Natural language processing (NLP): Software that helps machines process human language through language prompts
Machine learning (ML): When machines analyze data and make recommendations based on it
Computer vision: Machines that can understand and interpret visual information
Within those fields are the AI tools that professionals are using or are interested in one day using. Arguably most popular are chatbots, with 40% of business leaders saying that they’ll be most likely to use ChatGPT on work-related tasks and 32% saying the same for Bard.
There’s also growing interest in using AI to generate still images and video for a variety of business use cases. Already, 20% of marketers report using AI for creating images specifically when making content.
And tools that can analyze large amounts of data quickly will be important across business sectors, with 37% of sales professionals already reporting that they use AI tools that analyze your website data and provide actionable insights (improving UX, finding content gaps, etc.).
These tools, while intimidating at first, can be easily unlocked with some time, concentration, and dedication, as with any skill.
In the words of HubSpot CMO Kipp Bodner: “If you are a know-it-all, you’re done. But there’s never been a better time to be a learn-it-all.”
3. How AI Will Help Business Leaders
We wouldn’t be talking about any of this if it wasn’t going to seriously improve our lives, right? (Right.)
Across job roles, professionals are busier than ever before, and time is certainly money when it comes to business.
Professionals estimated that they save an average of 2 hours and 24 minutes each day using AI and automation tools compared to without them. These tools can be particularly helpful for a task like taking notes in a meeting, where professionals estimated AI tools saved them an average of 1 hour and 49 minutes.
Meghan Keaney Anderson, the VP at Jasper AI, said on a recent episode of Marketing Against the Grain that the time we save shouldn’t go to waste but rather should get reallocated into high-impact projects.
“Our role now is to figure out how to use [AI] in a way where we don’t just put junk on the internet, but we’re reinvesting the time that we get back,” she says.
“Productivity and the act of creating builds upon itself. We’ve seen it with the internet and the printing press — whenever you have this moment when something releases all the barriers on creation, you get this period of massive productivity and creation.”
Business professionals who understand this premise will be at an advantage in the near future: 78% agree that AI can help them spend more time on the most important parts of their roles, and 78% strongly agree that AI can help them be more efficient in their roles.
Excitingly, AI will continue to take the labor-intensive but uninspiring projects off our desks. Of surveyed business professionals, 81% agree that AI tools can help them spend less time on manual tasks such as data entry and scheduling meetings.
Can’t say we’ll be sorry to see those administrative tasks go...
4. Business Leaders’ Biggest Concerns About AI
Innovation is never perfect, and that holds true for artificial intelligence. There are real fears surrounding AI, from how it will change our jobs and affect our livelihoods to what this means for trust and ethics.
As far as what business professionals are most worried about, 41% report being concerned that AI will replace their jobs in the next few years. On the flip side, 36% agree that at some point in the future, AI will completely replace humans in the workplace.
“One of the things we are all forced to do now is to break down our roles and figure out the parts of our roles that actually can be automated away,” says Zapier CMO Kieran Flanagan. “We are better off automating those things to get time back.”
There are also broader societal fears at play, with 38% of business professionals agreeing that AI poses a threat to humanity.
Ultimately, change is scary, and most technological advancements in history were met with fear and doubt from the general public.
Regardless of whether the change will be good or bad, 64% of business professionals agree that AI/automation tools will make a significant impact on how they do their jobs in 2023.
5. The Future of AI in Business
If your head is spinning after reading all the ways AI could change our businesses — and our lives — you’re not alone.
The innovation is dizzying, and it’s only getting started. By 2024, 64% of business professionals agree that most people will use some form of AI or automation to assist them in their jobs.
And they agree this will majorly affect the bottom line of the business: 53% agree if AI were fully implemented within their company, the business would see unprecedented growth, and 56% agree AI can help their business scale in a way that would be impossible without it.
“It’s inescapable; there are machines and programs getting as good, or better, than humans,” says Jamal Meneide. “AI is profoundly changing the world that we live in. It underpins how businesses and customers interact everyday.”
If you’ve made it all the way through this article, you know we started off with mention of the industrial revolution. And we’re finishing by coming full circle: 57% of business pros agree that when it comes to the impact it will have on human productivity, AI will rival the industrial revolution
“It’s going to change how you communicate with people, how you buy things, how you travel, the list goes on,” says Meneide. “While that can feel intimidating and the future is far from certain, it’s important to figure out how we can use it to get the most out of our lives.”
Artificial intelligence is on the move, and it looks like there’s no stopping it — so it might just be time to get on board.
https://blog.hubspot.com/
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