In another study highlighted by the WSJ, researchers at the firm Parks Associates surveyed around 4,000 US consumers' feelings towards AI marketing, with a slightly more blunt approach: "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?'" Jennifer Kent, vice president of research at Parks Associates, told the paper.
The majority of respondents — 58 percent — said that AI made no difference in their inclination toward buying a product. But 24 percent said AI would make them less likely to, and only 18 percent said they would be more likely to make the purchase. Broken down by age, 24 to 27 percent of the younger crowd (18 to 44 years old) said they were more likely to buy products marketed as having AI, compared with 18 percent overall. And 32 percent of those over 65 years of age and older, by contrast, said they were less likely to buy these products, compared to 24 percent overall.
But the most striking thing? It seems that the AI hype has reached a saturation point.
"Before this wave of generative AI attention over the past couple of years," Kent told the paper, "AI-enabled features actually have tested very, very well."
From the article, "Something Hilarious Happens When Potential Customers See That a Product Has AI Features" by Frank Landymore