Study: 86% of CMOs plan to invest in AI, machine learning

Machine learning and AI are expected to be big with retailers in the coming year, as more than 86% of CMO's say they are planning to invest in it in 2017, according to a study by Persado that was emailed to Retail Dive. Almost half (47%) of respondents said they plan to invest up to $50 million in the technology, while a quarter plan to spend over $100 million on it. Effective customer engagement topped the list of benefits that marketers hope to receive from an investment in AI, where engagement "is considered foremost as a driver of revenue (37%) and to a much lesser extent, brand awareness (13%)," the report states. Despite the possibility of using technology to drive personalization, only 22% of those surveyed felt skilled at emotionally engaging customers through their content, something the researchers believe might be a result of data collection that is limited to demographic and location data. There's no question that AI is a growing field for retailers.