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AI will Face Challenges of Trust, Accuracy, and Public Perception

By Kimen Warner, VP of Product Management, Drift      

In 2023, companies will be challenged to do more with less, creating the perfect storm for AI implementations to drive efficiency without losing effectiveness. Research from marketing tech unicorn Drift's 2022 State of Marketing Report, which included responses from 600+ marketing professionals, found that 74% of marketers believe they will be intelligently automating more than a quarter of their tasks in the next five years. As we close the door to 2022 and enter an uncertain 2023, there are four trends in particular that we are keeping on our radar.

Perception is still AI's biggest challenge in the B2B sector

 As more B2C products incorporate AI, consumers will inevitably become fearful about data being stolen and AI taking over-and apply that same thinking to AI's application in the B2B space. Marketers are unfamiliar with AI, too - in fact, 45% of marketers classified themselves as AI beginners - which can lead to skepticism and distrust. Taking AI out of the black box will be critical to achieving understanding, trust and greater adoption among businesses. Buyers need to understand what exactly the technology does, how it provides value, and trust that it will continue to work properly when they take their hands off. 

But, AI will become much more accurate in 2023, which will help to improve trust

The more accurate a dataset is, the more relevant it is. The open-sourcing of many AI models has made data collection and training both faster and more accurate for AI technologies. When applied to AI bots, this means they will be more personalized and can more accurately answer visitor's questions to drive them towards the right outcome. This leads to more trust in AI - both from marketers and customers. Accuracy is of paramount importance in AI, as 47% of marketers said they would stop using Conversational Marketing altogether if it provided inaccurate information. In 2023, we'll see a steep improvement in the accuracy of AI, leading to more and more companies trusting automation to drive growth and improve efficiencies.

Companies relying on third-party cookies will be at a competitive disadvantage

Third-party cookies are already on the decline. Companies that don't prioritize a strong first-party data collection strategy are setting themselves back for the near term. AI-powered conversational technologies will be critical to implementing effective first-party strategies at scale. They are ‘human-like', letting visitors voice their needs in their own words to quickly get what they want. This helps build trust with buyers by creating value for them before asking for anything in return -- and empowering customers to willingly ‘opt in' and consent to sharing more information about themselves.

A single strategy across communications channels will be key to retaining customers

Today, customers communicate across many channels - phone, chat, social media, video, and more. As a result, we're going to see companies develop a single voice across all of these channels and capture all the cross-channel conversational data about their customers in one place. Meeting customers in the communication channel of their choice with the right personalized message will be a key differentiator for buyers and sellers alike.

As economic uncertainty and rampant inflation seem to follow us into 2023, companies will understand that AI technologies are critical. Drift's State of Conversations report found that only 51% of marketers say AI is either very important or critically important to their marketing success over the next 12 months - but I predict that that number will grow drastically a year from now. As B2B buying becomes increasingly digital, I urge companies to give serious thought to not only implementing AI, but lending it their trust. Despite some of the stories that we're seeing in the news today, AI is not just a gimmick, and it's not out of control. If it's trained with first-party data, utilized effectively, and presented so that your customers trust it, AI will be the key ingredient for your 2023 business and marketing strategy.

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Kimen Warner is the Vice President of Product Management at Drift. She is responsible for overseeing the product management organization and defining the vision and roadmap for the Drift product with her partners in design and engineering.

Throughout her career she has been focused on enterprise SaaS solutions. Prior to Drift, Kimen spent 15 years in product management roles at Adobe. At the end of her tenure there, she led product management for the Adobe Target solution in the Digital Experience Cloud. Adobe Target offered A/B testing, rules-based targeting, automated personalization using machine-learning algorithms, collaborative filtering-based recommendations and multivariate testing solutions to enterprise companies.

Kimen holds a bachelor's degree in Product Design from Stanford University. She currently resides in San Francisco, California with her husband and two daughters.