Marketers’ primary job is to know what the customer wants. It’s easy, but tough. When Jim Stengel was CMO of Procter & Gamble, he told me, “You can never know the customer too well.” Jim knew his customers well enough that he turned Swiffer (an upgraded dust rag) right into a multi-billion dollar brand platform.
If there is one thing the public has made clear, it’s that they aren’t impressed by AI of their products. The most up-to-date evidence: A study of 1,000 people found products described as having AI were consistently less popular than people who weren’t.
“When AI is mentioned, it tends to lower emotional trust, which in turn decreases purchase intentions,” said lead creator and Washington State University clinical assistant professor of promoting Mesut Cicek in a press release. “We found emotional trust plays a critical role in how consumers perceive AI-powered products.”
Dig deeper: 67% of marketers say lack of coaching is primary barrier to AI adoption
AI means less more likely to purchase
For example, researchers found people were far less more likely to purchase a wise television when its description included “artificial intelligence.” A separate group was way more more likely to buy it when the words were omitted from an analogous description.
The effect was even greater with high-risk/big-ticket purchases like expensive electronics or medical devices. Researchers said this may very well be because consumers are more wary of monetary loss or danger to physical safety.
This is not an outlier study.
So you’ll be able to imagine my response when the following showed up in an email this morning: “Startups and types must take steps to demystify AI to consumers (and due to this fact not have or not it’s such a turnoff of a term/so jargony) and reduce the black box effect — explaining it in simplified terms, and making it accessible/empowering for everybody to grasp and use. “
Why? Why not hearken to what consumers are saying?
Listen to consumers
For consumers, AI is the latest version of the Internet of Things. It is a technology added to products even when it provides little or no value for the consumer. Why are there internet-connected fridges, toothbrushes or dishwashers? I actually have seen a mirror that might not be used since it needed to reboot. (I’ll spare you my rant about IoT locks and lighting systems.)
While there are useful IoT products, lots appear to exist so manufacturers can collect data on the users.
Likewise, consumers dislike AI since it is something the company thinks they need and nothing they need. Oral-B just released an AI toothbrush to let you know what spots you missed. There are AI grills promising steaks cooked exactly as you wish them. There are AI coffee makers, mattresses, pillows, baby monitors, snow blowers, “dog companion robots,” and much too many more.
Let’s all take a breath and remind ourselves what generative AI is. It’s a stochastic parrot that answers questions based on what its data set says is the most often used answer in similar circumstances. It is such an inherently flawed product that corporations warn people to not trust its output. I’m reminded of this each time I open up Facebook and the AI asks me things like, “Do you must know more about light?”
The solution to consumers’ dislike of AI is not “explaining it in simplified terms, and making it accessible/empowering for everybody to grasp and use.”
Consumers know enough about AI to comprehend it doesn’t interest them. According to Forrester’s March 2024 Consumer Pulse Survey, only 31% of U.S. consumers have used genAI; 58% have heard of genAI but have never used it. Keep in mind, U.S. consumers are way ahead of those in other countries with regards to using AI.
Demystify AI? There’s no mystery. Consumers know corporations want consumers to want AI. Some may even know the corporations pushing this concept are working to search out use cases for AI in their very own businesses.
What brands should do is make things consumers want. If it uses AI, that’s nice, but consumers don’t care about it any greater than they do about what computer chips are of their cars.
Make things people want. Simple, but tough.
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