Beware of Promoting AI in Products, Researchers Warn Marketers (msn.com) 26
The Wall Street Journal reports that "consumers have less trust in offerings labeled as being powered by artificial intelligence, which can reduce their interest in buying them, researchers say."
The effect is especially pronounced for offerings perceived to be riskier buys, such as a car or a medical-diagnostic service, say the researchers, who were from Washington State University and Temple University. "When we were thinking about this project, we thought that AI will improve [consumers' willingness to buy] because everyone is promoting AI in their products," says Dogan Gursoy, a regents professor of hospitality business management at Washington State and one of the study's authors. "But apparently it has a negative effect, not a positive one."
In multiple experiments, involving different people, the researchers split participants into two groups of around 100 each. One group read ads for fictional products and services that featured the terms "artificial intelligence" or "AI-powered," while the other group read ads that used the terms "new technology" or "equipped with cutting-edge technologies." In each test, members of the group that saw the AI-related wording were less likely to say they would want to try, buy or actively seek out any of the products or services being advertised compared with people in the other group. The difference was smaller for items researchers called low risk — such as a television and a generic customer-service offering...
Meanwhile, a separate, forthcoming study from market-research firm Parks Associates that used different methods and included a much larger sample size came to similar conclusions about consumers' reaction to AI in products. "We straight up asked consumers, 'If you saw a product that you liked that was advertised as including AI, would that make you more or less likely to buy it?' " says Jennifer Kent, the firm's vice president of research. Of the roughly 4,000 Americans in the survey, 18% said AI would make them more likely to buy, 24% said less likely and to 58% it made no difference, according to the study. "Before this wave of generative AI attention over the past couple of years, AI-enabled features actually have tested very, very well," Kent says.
In multiple experiments, involving different people, the researchers split participants into two groups of around 100 each. One group read ads for fictional products and services that featured the terms "artificial intelligence" or "AI-powered," while the other group read ads that used the terms "new technology" or "equipped with cutting-edge technologies." In each test, members of the group that saw the AI-related wording were less likely to say they would want to try, buy or actively seek out any of the products or services being advertised compared with people in the other group. The difference was smaller for items researchers called low risk — such as a television and a generic customer-service offering...
Meanwhile, a separate, forthcoming study from market-research firm Parks Associates that used different methods and included a much larger sample size came to similar conclusions about consumers' reaction to AI in products. "We straight up asked consumers, 'If you saw a product that you liked that was advertised as including AI, would that make you more or less likely to buy it?' " says Jennifer Kent, the firm's vice president of research. Of the roughly 4,000 Americans in the survey, 18% said AI would make them more likely to buy, 24% said less likely and to 58% it made no difference, according to the study. "Before this wave of generative AI attention over the past couple of years, AI-enabled features actually have tested very, very well," Kent says.
I see more and more products marketed as AI-free (Score:5, Interesting)
It's becoming a selling point.
Hell, I even watched a video leaked from some OnlyFans account that had the preamble "This content creator prides herself in making her own content herself entirely: no AI bullshit involved!" If the porn industry rejects it, you know it's bad for business.
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Correct. There are spambots all over YouTube comment sections linking to AI "camgirl" sites that are slowly trying to take over the camgirl space (which is essentially the space occupied by or adjacent to OnlyFans). These bots are popping up in "family friendly" channels, and banning them all has become quite a chore.
If they've reached that far outside of adults-only spaces then you can imagine how far is their reach.
Youtube is profitting off these scams (Score:2)
so don't expect those ads to go away soon.
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so don't expect those ads to go away soon.
YouTube, in any administration but the right wing, would be facing all kinds of hell for the scam ads it accepts. The penultimate was the toy robot dog with that jingle bells playing, now it's the rubber band air conditioners that even Walmart had to withdraw. CFPB and the FTC's Bureau of Consumer Protection have been gutted into uselessness. It seems to me that Alphabet is now the very definition of "evil" they pretend not to be. More proof, as if we needed it, that entropy only runs down hill. The Enshitt
Re: Youtube is profitting off these scams (Score:1)
Right, the enshittification of YouTube began Nov 9, 2024.
Brilliant insight, please share more.
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"Organic" is also a label used to market groceries, as a selling point. But there's no hope of "most" groceries soon becoming "organic."
"AI-free" is an upsell, yes. But it's not an indication that AI is losing steam.
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^^^^^^^ This! A thousand times, this!
And Tim Cook says.... (Score:2)
"Now you tell me!"
A perfect example of disconnect (Score:4, Insightful)
When we were thinking about this project, we thought that AI will improve [consumers' willingness to buy] because everyone is promoting AI in their products
This is a great example of the complete disconnect that exists between the intellectual class and the population in general. And you can see similar disconnects with other classes like scientific, business, and most of all, political class. People living in these silos almost exclusively interract with other people in their own silos, and they come to believe that their specific way of thinking, values, etc, are representative of the population at large.
I'm sure that Gursoy guy was genuinely surprised by the results of his study, while for most of the rest of the population these results were entirely predictable and completely obvious.
Re:A perfect example of disconnect (Score:4, Insightful)
The tech world isn't the "intellectual" class. It's the crass profit-at-all-costs business class. That's why they market AI: they know perfectly well AI is shit and nobody but corporate bean counters want it, but corporate bean counters is where the money is.
Re: A perfect example of disconnect (Score:2)
Never ascribe to malice that which can be adequately explained by insularity and shortsightedness. Or stupidity if we're being judgy in our attempt to not be judgemental.
Information bubbles exist. Some are defined by language barriers. Others by geography and others still by culture.
Maybe they're deliberately peddling shit. Or maybe they believe their own propaganda. It's not like that never happens.
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When we were thinking about this project, we thought that AI will improve [consumers' willingness to buy] because everyone is promoting AI in their products
This is a great example of the complete disconnect that exists between the intellectual class and the population in general. .
Professors of marketing and management are not intellectuals. They are ultimately shills for the commercial world, as we see here. Their biggest concern is to shift more widgets.
Fleet Enemas (Score:2)
Now with AI!
Honest alternative to powered by ai (Score:1)
Outsourced to some third world fuck making slave wages sitting at a computer waiting to answer your prompt.
Is AI good or bad for marketing? (Score:2)
Generally speaking, AI is bad for marketing, because humans favor human made products even when they would rate the AI made products better than human made[1]. There are some exceptions to this, but those are quite minor. There are some reasons to this, but I think the most common reason is that humans don't understand how much better the AI is compared to humans in some tasks. I have talked to several people and when ever I bring up the fact that AI performs better than humans, they are shocked and demand
People equate AI with chat bots (Score:2)
AI (Score:2)
I have had at least three suppliers who I have called up and asked them how to / to turn off the AI features they've introduced.
No, I don't not want your AI "summarising" long helpdesk tickets chains so that people don't bother to read them before telling users what the fix is or how long it'll take.
It will, quite assuredly, affect my future renewals and purchasing of such products if I can't turn it off, and it's something I'll be looking for. We're looking at new HR packages. I hit upon one that said it
"new technology" or "cutting-edge technologies" (Score:3)
"New technology" or "equipped with cutting-edge technologies" isn't a real selling point any more either because people have come to expect that to mean "still contains bugs" and "will not work as expected".
The problem with "AI" in this context is that the current hype about "AI" is all about LLMs. There are other forms of AI that have been very useful and reliable. LLMs have proved they are not that kind of AI for everyone who has actually checked their results against trustable sources and the media has actually reported about (some of) these incidents.
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The point is 'new' and 'cutting-edge' are uselessly vague, but have long been a staple of marketing speak that people have pretty much tuned it out. They wanted a 'control' for a marketing word and those are pretty much best they could come up.
I would say the marketing issues aren't even about LLMs or any specific problematic experience, but being wary of an overused buzzword. It might have some further negative impression owing to the threat that AI is going to come for their jobs. I'd say it's a tiny fr
right, now do "diversity" ! (Score:1)
Tsia
Hollow word... (Score:2)
AI is obnoxiously overused in marketing and invites skepticism immediately as it strikes people as lazy marketing trying to cache in on a blatantly hyped phrase. It starts to smell scammy when all the scammers are right in the bandwagon of using it.
Further, it doesn't talk about *what* the product does, but just says it uses AI to do it. People want to know what is good about a product, and wouldn't care if it's done by some credibly "AI" approach, or a traditional programming, or a breed of super intellige