New research has found that 59 per cent of Australian and New Zealand marketers are using artificial intelligence (AI) extensively or on a limited basis, while 23 per cent are piloting or planning to use AI within the next two years.

The findings were revealed in Salesforce’s State of Marketing report for 2017, which also found that 58 per cent of ANZ marketers believe AI is absolutely or very essential to creating one-to-one marketing across every touch point.

Here are some of the other key local findings, according to the study:

• A majority of ANZ marketers agree that a connected customer journey across all touch points and channels positively impacts overall customer engagement (68 per cent) and revenue growth (67 per cent).
• 61 per cent are aligning marketing roles to a customer journey strategy versus traditional roles.
• 58 per cent are satisfied with their collaboration with other departments.
• 60 per cent are extremely or very satisfied with their ability to engage customers across channels at scale.
• 62 per cent of ANZ marketers say their current tech stack is extremely or very effective at increasing productivity, while 57 per cent say it’s extremely or very effective and improving collaboration across marketing functions.
• Budget constraints and privacy concerns are the top barriers preventing ANZ marketers to fully tap into the marketing automation and AI.
• ANZ marketers struggle to leverage data from different sources, which is partly due to a lack of available skillset, preventing marketing teams from getting a single view of the customer.

Kevin Doyle, director of advertising products for the JAPAC region at Salesforce, said the report highlights that customer journeys are the silver bullet to marketing success.

“High-performing marketers are personalising messaging across all owned and paid channels, and are seeing real increases in revenue as the result,” he said.

“Technology has caught up to the vision that digital marketing promised, allowing the best performing marketers to run omni-channel campaigns personalised for each customer.

Doyle said AI has moved from being theoretical to being part of the arsenal of technologies available to marketers, “powering greater personalisation and the building of customer journeys at scale”.

“The leading marketers in 2017 will be the ones who adopt these capabilities before their competitors,” he said.