It's almost unanimous—89% of leaders believe personalization is crucial to their business’ success in the next three years.
This is our fifth-annual State of Personalization report after all. If we didn’t believe in (or the data didn’t support) the intrinsic value of personalization to business growth, we’d have called it quits long ago.
And, yet again, our findings show that if brands want to win over hearts, minds, and wallets, they need to ditch the one-size-fits-all approach to personalization. Instead, it's all about using data and technology to deliver that perfect blend of relevancy, authenticity, and anticipation.
“I often talk about data – it's not like oil. To me, it's more like water. You have a lot of water that's not usable. You have a lot of things in data today that aren't usable. Now, in order for AI to be really impactful in your organization, it has to start with data. Do you have clean data? Is that data pristine? Do you know the lineage of the data? Because, AI is nothing if it doesn't have clean data to essentially build intelligence off of, particularly when you talk about generative AI.”
Jacqueline Woods
CMO, TeradataOver 70% of brands agree that AI adoption will fundamentally change personalization and marketing strategies.
These leaders understand that AI's ability to process massive amounts of data in real-time will enable more predictive insights and customized approaches, fundamentally shifting how we interact with customers.
This shift will bring personalization to new heights, as companies use AI to anticipate needs, craft tailored experiences, and build deeper, more meaningful connections with their audience.
“We're focused on using generative AI to interact with members to help answer their questions in a highly personalized way when shopping for financial products. Customers can interact, learn more, and ask questions to help make confident decisions.”
Source: Earnings call 2/22/24
61% of companies may be losing sleep over the specter of inaccurate data muddying their AI-driven personalization efforts.
This concern underscores a universal truth in the realm of AI: garbage in, garbage out.
As businesses continue to lean on AI and machine learning for sharper customer insights, ensuring data accuracy is an absolute necessity to avoid the pitfalls of AI/ML algorithms trained on bad data.
“The new wave of advancements happening in AI today holds the promise of finally delivering on the ideal: a generative AI engine that is able to absorb everything we know about a particular prospect or customer, along with all the relevant content and information for a specific marketing campaign or program, and to synthesize a personalized message — an email, a web page, a mobile experience, a contact center engagement, etc. — that is wholly crafted for that specific person.”
Scott Brinker
VP of Platform, HubspotOur survey respondents envision a landscape where chatbots do more than just respond—they engage, understand, and anticipate the needs of users with a finesse that mimics a human touch.
The expected rise of chatbots signifies a shift towards more dynamic and intelligent platforms that can manage complex customer relationships at scale, suggesting that the next big leap in personalization will be through conversational AI that knows just what to say, and just as importantly, when to say it.
“Personalized interactions have long been a priority for companies. Recent advances in generative AI offer more than just a step-change in personalization, but a true transformative and generational change in how businesses engage customers. Now is the time for businesses to build a strong customer data foundation to seize the moment and exceed their customers’ expectations.”
Thomas Wyatt
President, Twilio SegmentWant to get the most out of your customer data?
Join the 25,000+ customers on the Segment platform today.