It’s almost December! If you have some time between now and your first eggnog, I'm participating in a webinar on Dec 13th on how to get started with AI in pharmaceutical marketing. My friends at PharmaBrands are organizing the event, and the great Jon Chiriboga will join me to share some insights from his impressive work at Astra Zeneca. You can register for free here.
Picking up from the last newsletter, more research is being published on the state of AI adoption within businesses, this time from KPMG, HBR, Google, Menlo, and Slack. I'm planning another webinar to synthesize and discuss this data in a marketing context, but in the meantime, here are some more data points that demonstrate how we're all using this technology today:
- AI use is up: 46% of working Canadian adults are using GenAI in their jobs, up from 22% in 2023.
- Privacy risks are up, too: 19% of Canadians using generative AI in the workplace said they’ve entered private financial data about their company into a public generative AI tool.
- Guidelines are lacking: 18% of Canadian employees say their company formally allows the use of generative AI tools and have a comprehensive policy in place.
- Employee interest in AI upskilling high: 76% of desk workers feel urgency to become an AI expert; the top 2 reasons being industry trends and personal goals.
- Employee transparency in AI use low: 48% of all desk workers would be uncomfortable admitting to their manager that they used AI for common workplace tasks.
- GenZ workers are embracing AI: 82% of GenZs surveyed use AI tools in their work today, and 93% of this group use 2 or more tools on a weekly basis.
- The job market is changing: GenAI is transforming labour markets by reducing demand for automation-prone jobs like writing and coding, while creating opportunities for new AI-related roles.
- AI spending is increasing: In 2024, enterprise investment in generative AI surged to $13.8 billion - over six times the previous year's $2.3 billion.
I feel for social media teams. As culture and platforms change, so do their plans. Add to that the never-ending need for more content (research indicates that brands should aim for 48-72 posts per week), and it’s a grind. It’s no wonder that more social media teams are turning to GenAI to help with social content production (+180% YoY growth in use of GenAI for editing images). If you’re involved in social content, check out We Are Social’s excellent Think Forward report that shares a fresh trends with examples. Canva also recently released a helpful collection of design trends and related templates, many of which can be used for creating social posts.
- Unveiling 2025 (Nextatlas): Annual report that highlights signals from early adopters on social media that marketers can use for planning. One trend is “Hyper Rawness”, which involves making discomfort an integral part of the brand’s appeal. It’s been part of my appeal for years, but I’m ahead of the curve.
- 2024 CMO Report (Dentsu): Report on the changing attitudes of CMOs. Highlights increased openness to AI; in 2023, 67% of marketers agreed that AI would never be able to create content that truly moved people compared to 49% in 2024.
- 2024 Global CMO Navigator (Merkle): More CMO research, this time focused on CX. Highlights that the primary goal of CMOs when it comes to AI is capability (intelligence for growth and personalization at 40%), followed by efficiency (more output at same cost at 27%).
- Technology & Media Outlook 2025 (Activate): 200+ pages of trends across the major areas of media and tech. Super interesting section on the impact of GenAI platforms on online search, stating that 60% of the use cases currently handled by Google can now be handled by a GenAI platform like ChatGPT – with more to come.
- Stressed out? Try video games. Apparently people are adopting a trend of “cozy gaming”, playing titles like Animal Crossing to sooth themselves. Others are escaping from stress by going to bed in VR sleep rooms that display environments like starry skies and beaches.
- Speaking of VR, researchers have created a miniature lollipop device that produces nine different virtual flavours. Shout out to the test subjects who were somehow convinced to throw on a pair of VR goggles and lick a virtual handset for a few hours.
- GenAI is being used to help people buy products, as Perplexity is introducing a shopping assistant and Google Lens now allows users to take a picture of an item to receive information about it – such as similar items from stores that are in stock.
- Do yourself a favour and spend 5 minutes browsing the best band logos and the best Nike athlete posters ever designed. I still have an original ‘Best on Mars’ Jordan t-shirt, that my daughter recently stole from me. Looks better on her.
