AI is increasingly becoming a business imperative. Nine in 10 Fortune 1000 companies are not only investing in AI, but are increasing those investments, with 92% reporting measurable business benefits from their current AI use -- up from 72% in 2020 and just 28% in 2018, according to a 2022 NewVantage Partners executive survey. Still, only 26% of companies say their AI initiatives have actually moved into widespread production. Cultural barriers, with executives 11 times more likely to say culture is the greatest impediment to AI success than to cite technology limitations as the biggest barrier. And the cultural challenges have actually gotten worse, with 92% of executives citing cultural factors this year vs. 81% in 2018.

With consumer expectations constantly being re-shaped by new developments in the market, brand marketers today face the formidable challenge of trying to hit a moving target. How well they are accomplishing that is the subject of a new report, "The Great Divide: Connecting brands to the real needs of today's consumer," based on research from Alliance Data's Analytics & Insights Institute. Using a combination of quantitative and qualitative research across more than 2,000 consumers and 40 brands, the research identified 31 consumer needs, measured how brands and consumers prioritize those needs, and asked consumers to rate how well those needs are being met. One of the issues the research identified is the difficulty brand marketers face in prioritizing consumer needs. Marketers gave the 31 needs studied an average importance score of 92 percent--everything is equally important.