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AI Low Hanging Fruit

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With all the hype and promise of AI, including synthetic market research I wrote about last week and new advances like “Agenic AI”, adoption in business is facing barriers and obstacles.

Deloitte published their latest State of Generative AI report last month, including this headline takeaway:

“We see that most companies are transforming at the speed of organizational change, not at the speed of technology.”

This parallels Gartner’s recent announcement that GenAI had “passed the Peak of Inflated Expectations” in its eponymous Hype Cycle, moving toward the “Trough of Disillusionment.” They advised companies to “focus on nontechnical AI considerations” like governance, risk ownership, data governance, and “low user acceptance” to deliver on the promise of GenAI.

The World Federation of Advertisers (WFA) recently found that only 40% of brands currently use GenAI for marketing communications. Polling member brands, 77% were concerned about IP and copyright issues and 66% saw legal risks as the biggest barrier to GenAI adoption.

It’ll take time and effort to navigate these “nontechnical” barriers and get beyond the lowest hanging fruit of GenAI in a meaningful way.

And also match what GenAI is capable of with what is most valuable to the business. I co-hosted a webinar last week with MoEngage and this observation from science fiction author Joanna Maciejewska came up:

“I want AI to do my laundry and dishes so that I can do art and writing, not for AI to do my art and writing so that I can do my laundry and dishes.”

New Cartoon Collaboration

This is the third of seven cartoons from a new collaboration with Confluence by Atlassian on how their product helps set knowledge free.

Sometimes it feels like we spend more time searching for team docs than actually working on them.

Free Virtual Keynote this week

This Wednesday, on February 26th, I’m giving at keynote on how creativity, data, and AI are shaping the future of marketing and brand-building at Superside’s virtual summit, “Overcommitted: The Art of Doing Less.” I hope to see some of you there!

Cartoon from the archives

I drew this cartoon two years ago, in early 2023 — just a couple of months after the arrival of ChatGPT. It’s become my most widely circulated cartoon of all time, with tens of millions of views. In just the last month, Axios and Semafor licensed it for their coverage on AI. I think we need our sense of humor more than ever to make sense of where we are.

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Thank you for all of your support (and cartoon material)!

-Tom

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About Marketoonist

Marketoonist is the thought bubble of me, Tom Fishburne. I first started drawing cartoons as a student in the Harvard Business School newspaper (not quite as well-known for humor as the Lampoon) and later started this newsletter from a General Mills cubicle in 2002. The cartoons have followed my career ever since. I poke fun at the ever-changing world of marketing and business because I believe that laughing at ourselves can help us do our best work.