Adobe has unveiled its 'State of AI-driven Customer Value' report, highlighting a discrepancy between marketers' optimism and consumer expectations regarding generative AI.

The report reveals that while 44% of brands are currently utilising generative AI, a significant 80% of consumers expect full adoption by the end of the year. However, only 72% of marketers align with this timeline, indicating a potential gap in meeting consumer expectations.

Transparency is a key concern for both consumers (92%) and marketers (93%) when it comes to AI usage, particularly in relation to privacy (67%) and data usage (59%). The report also reveals that 55% of Australian consumers believe generative AI has improved their online shopping experience and are eager for further enhancements. Areas of interest include automated product filtering, event suggestions, and chatbot-based customer service.

In the travel sector, a substantial 86% of consumers are interested in personalised options and 90% want real-time information like nearby amenities and price comparisons, facilitated by AI.

Vice President of Digital Experience Marketing, Adobe Asia Pacific and Japan, Duncan Egan, said: “With rising concerns around AI, Adobe has been careful to develop its generative AI technologies in a thoughtful and responsible way, including with Adobe Firefly, our family of creative generative AI models. Firm ethical principles have been integrated at every step of product development and we continuously test our generative AI features to reduce the potential for harm and bias. To promote transparency around wholly AI-generated content, Content Credentials are attached to Firefly outputs.

“We want to make it easy for brands to adopt generative AI to drive business value and consumer trust. This is why we’ve embedded generative AI directly into the workflows and tools that marketers and creatives use every day. We’ve also trained our models to create content designed to be safe for commercial use, and integrated tools that reviews this content for brand compliance.”

The 'State of AI-driven Customer Value' report was based on an online survey of 400 marketers and 1,000 consumers conducted between February and May 2024.