The use of AI in the advertising industry in Spain: interest, knowledge and use

El uso de la IA en la industria publicitaria en España: interés, conocimiento y uso

O uso da IA na indústria publicitária em Espanha: interesse, conhecimento e utilização

Cristina del Pino-Romero^1*

Susana Asenjo McCabe^2**

Susana Herrera Damas^3***

¹ Carlos III University in Madrid (UC3M), Spain
² Carlos III University in Madrid (UC3M), Spain
³ Carlos III University in Madrid (UC3M), Spain
^* Full Professor at Carlos III University in Madrid (UC3M), Spain. Email: cpino@hum.uc3m.es
^** Associate Professor in the Department of Communication at Carlos III University in Madrid (UC3M), Spain. Email: sasenjo@hum.uc3m
^*** Professor of Journalism at Carlos III University in Madrid (UC3M), Spain. Email: dherrera@hum.uc3m.es

Abstract

Despite having emerged only recently in society, instruments involving artificial intelligence, or AI, have permeated all areas of knowledge and society, including the advertising sector. These tools have already been adopted by various players in the industry, and their proliferation continues to accelerate. New applications in advertising are either being combined, or are evolving, in order to carry out tasks related to content generation, data analysis, personalisation, automation, chatbots, and virtual assistants, as well as image and voice recognition. To be competitive, advertising agencies cannot turn their backs on this innovation, so the mastery of these tools by their employees seems to be the only choice. The aim of this research is to survey advertising professionals (n=373) regarding their knowledge, interest, and use of AI. The results show that although interest is high, the level of knowledge is only moderate, resulting in limited use and the failure to harness its full potential. Therefore, it is essential for professionals in this field to acquire the skills needed in order to effectively use all the features offered by these tools, in order to take the fullest advantage of them. To achieve this, it is necessary for companies to invest in further training for their employees in this area.

Keywords
Artificial Intelligence; Marketing; Advertising; Professionals; Survey; Spain.

Resumen

Aunque han irrumpido en la sociedad recientemente, las herramientas de inteligencia artificial (IA) han permeado todos los ámbitos de conocimiento y de la sociedad, incluido el sector de la comunicación publicitaria. Estas herramientas han sido ya adoptadas por los distintos actores de la industria y su proliferación continúa a un ritmo acelerado. Nuevas aplicaciones en el ámbito de la publicidad se combinan o evolucionan para atender tareas relacionadas con generación de contenido, análisis de datos, personalización, automatización, chatbots y asistentes virtuales o reconocimiento de imágenes y voz. Para ser competitivas, las agencias publicitarias no pueden dar la espalda a estas innovaciones, por lo que el dominio de estas herramientas por parte de sus empleados parece hoy inevitable. El objetivo de esta investigación es encuestar a los profesionales de la industria publicitaria (n=373) respecto al conocimiento, interés y uso que hacen de estas herramientas. Los resultados señalan que, a pesar de que el interés es elevado, el nivel de conocimiento es intermedio, lo que se traduce en un uso limitado y en una infrautilización de todo su potencial. Por ello, resulta fundamental que los profesionales de este ámbito adquieran las competencias necesarias para emplear todas las prestaciones que ofrecen estas herramientas de manera efectiva con el fin de sacarles el máximo rendimiento. Para conseguirlo, también es necesario que las empresas inviertan en la formación de sus trabajadores.

Palabras clave
Inteligencia Artificial; Marketing; Publicidad; Profesionales; Encuesta; España.

Resumo

Embora só recentemente tenham entrado na sociedade, as ferramentas de inteligência artificial (IA) penetraram em todos os domínios do conhecimento e da sociedade, incluindo o sector da comunicação publicitária. Estas ferramentas já foram adoptadas por vários intervenientes do sector e a sua proliferação continua a um ritmo acelerado. As novas aplicações na publicidade estão a combinar-se ou a evoluir para abordar tarefas relacionadas com a geração de conteúdos, a análise de dados, a personalização, a automatização, os chatbots e os assistentes virtuais, o reconhecimento de imagem e de voz. Para serem competitivas, as agências de publicidade não podem virar as costas a estas inovações, pelo que o domínio destas ferramentas pelos seus empregados parece hoje inevitável. O objetivo desta investigação é inquirir os profissionais do sector da publicidade (n=373) sobre o seu conhecimento, interesse e utilização destas ferramentas. Os resultados mostram que, embora o interesse seja elevado, o nível de conhecimento é intermédio, o que resulta numa utilização limitada e na subutilização de todo o seu potencial. Por conseguinte, é essencial que os profissionais deste sector adquiram as competências necessárias para utilizar eficazmente todas as funcionalidades oferecidas por estas ferramentas, a fim de tirar o máximo partido das mesmas. Para o efeito, é também necessário que as empresas invistam na formação dos seus trabalhadores.

Palavras-chave
Inteligência Artificial; Marketing; Publicidade; Profissionais; Pesquisa; Espanha.

1. Introduction

Tools related to artificial intelligence, or AI, have only recently burst onto the scene, yet they have already permeated every field of knowledge, and all areas of society as well. This has generated an unparalleled impact, which is a revolution that is rapidly and profoundly transforming our social, economic, and political systems (Walsh, 2017). This technology is effecting changes in the industrial framework, the labour market, job skills, and professional profiles. Moreover, it is introducing greater automation and efficiency in production processes, along with innovation, progress, and new opportunities. Consequently, AI might just be the greatest technological revolution of our time and may even alter nearly every aspect of human existence. Thus, we are facing nothing less than the greatest technological transformation of our generation (Merali and Merali, 2023).

Although research into AI has been ongoing for decades, specifically since the 1950s, and is therefore not a new phenomenon, it was not until the 2010s that AI was integrated into everyday products and services (Haenlein and Kaplan, 2019). Moreover, at that time generative AI started to become accessible to society at large. This was possible thanks to technological advances, the proliferation of tools, and platforms that were accessible and free. In this regard, Open AI’s launch of the tool known as Chat GPT at the end of 2022, and its lightning-fast adoption by users worldwide (Andrada, 2023), resulted in a major disruption and milestone in deep learning and accessibility for all kinds of users and tasks, due to the instrument’s ability to generate human-like responses in a conversational setting (Haque and Li, 2024).

The impact of AI on all spheres of life is no less significant in the field of marketing and advertising. Its application to this sector has been a gradual process that has gained significant momentum in the last two decades. It has been used in this sector since the late 1990s, with expanded use in four key areas: segmentation, personalisation, content creation, and campaign optimisation (Bhatt, 2021; Campbell et al., 2022; Jaiwant, 2023; Malthouse and Copulsky, 2023; Nikolajeva and Teilans, 2021; cited by Gao et al., 2023). Thus, some of the multiple applications of AI to digital advertising and marketing include the following: data mining and analysis, as well as CRM; recommendation engines; programmatic advertising; predictive analytics; language modelling and chatbots; brand experience creation; personalised marketing; dynamic targeting; contextual and hyper-targeted advertising; data intelligence; and even generative creativity (Haleem et al., 2022).

The relative novelty of AI precludes a historical perspective and access to diverse epistemological approaches. Nevertheless, based on the premise that AI is not just an evolution, but a revolution in the media environment, this paper is founded on media ecology. This school of thought studies the media as environments (Postman, 1970), and argues that technology, the media, and communication profoundly influence society, affecting the perception, experience, attitude, and behaviour of individuals and communities as a whole. The study at hand endorses this idea to the extent that advertising, as a communicative process, ultimately interacts and adapts to the media ecosystem. In short, technology generates environments that affect the people who use them (Scolari, 2015).

As pointed out by Nystrom (1974), the media ecosystem undergoes changes in its paradigm (Kuhn) or Noosphere (Laszlo, von Bertalanffy), as a consequence of the surge of new technology. Moreover, as AI is “a new animal in the ecosystem” (Scolari, as cited in Andrada, 2023, p.126), it is producing one such change by transforming production and business operations, as well as the very structure of the advertising industry. AI is also affecting the way companies and brands relate to their consumers by influencing how advertising messages and content are generated and distributed. Moreover, this technology is also changing the way consumers access, perceive, consume, and generally make their purchase decisions.

Given the context, advertising professionals are being obligated to introduce AI into their workflows, even without their consent, which is forcing them to rethink their job routines. In short, they have to reassess their very role in the advertising framework in order to adapt to this inexorable change in the way advertising content is being created and transmitted. While practices introduced by big data, algorithms, social networks, and virtual/augmented reality are still being consolidated in advertising, the arrival of AI in the digital ecosystem has forced marketing and advertising professionals to face a more complex situation, if that were even possible. Moreover, this new environment requires new competencies, skills, and qualifications in order for professionals to undertake novel tasks and challenges.

This research addresses two formal objects of study and how they are intertwined: AI, and the marketing/advertising sector. Specifically, we want to focus on the interest, knowledge, and use of AI among the professionals who work in advertising, marketing, and branded content in Spain. The question is not so much whether AI will play an important role in the advertising and marketing sector in the future, or whether its professionals will be forced to incorporate it into their workflows. Instead, the issue is to determine the specific role it will play, and the extent to which knowledge and use of this technology will be the key to tackling the different tasks involved and will enable professionals to fully harness the new opportunities offered by these tools.

2. Literature review

In this section, we review the available literature on AI and its relationship to marketing, with the aim of updating interested scholars on the link between both concepts. To this end, we have systematically compiled and analysed the bibliographical references on the subject, mainly focused on papers and books published in the last five years.

The literature review indicates that although a large number of academic papers on marketing strategies and AI exist, there is only a small amount of research linking both concepts (Cuervo-Sánchez, 2021).

As with any emerging technology, companies are immersed in learning how to incorporate AI into their workflows, but sometimes without knowing the best way to harness the vast number of tools it offers, nor its potential impact on knowledge management (Paschen et al., 2019). In the same vein, Wilson and Bettis-Outland (2020) highlight the importance of using analytical marketing tools appropriately.

Zhang et al. (2019, p. 2370) have proposed a definition of AI that serves as the foundation for contextualising the object of study, which is as follows: “AI is the science that creates machines that have quasi-human intelligence and reasoning”. Based on this definition, AI has a number of new implications for marketing, especially in B2B (Business to Business) marketing, where the main impact is related to the vast amount of data involved, and the best way to store it. Along the same lines, Heinis et al. (2018) highlight the fact that the use of AI is more evident in companies that target the end consumer (B2C).

In this regard, these authors emphasise the importance of conducting in-depth analyses in order to understand the driving forces, as well as the constraints, that have contributed to the current growth of AI. In a study by Kaczorowska-Spychalska (2019), this author focuses on chatbots and how they enable a series of processes, both in marketing and after-sales operations, as they are able to resolve consumers’ questions and carry out complex tasks, which the machines learn through repetition. This is the dialogue between human beings and machines outlined by Conoscenti et al. (2016), in which machines make life more efficient by saving time.

Dholakia and Firat (2019) describe how marketing has become one of the disciplines most affected by AI, due to the ease with which it collects, analyses, and channels information.

The rise of AI in marketing has not occurred in isolation, but rather in tandem with the generally rapid advance of technology. This progress contributed to the unfolding of its potential in this field, in the sense that AI computerises other aspects of commerce, and it generates data that can be used for support (Stone et al., 2020). In fact, interest in AI and its impact on marketing, and especially consumer goods marketing, is gaining momentum, because it represents a radical change (Grandinetti, 2020). Furthermore, this change is not limited to making marketing decisions. Instead, AI encompasses a much broader horizon, as we will see in the results section of our study.

Continuing with the literature review, Yeğin (2020) discusses how consumer tendencies and preferences can be predicted by analysing their purchase behaviour. According to Geru et al. (2018), although the business world is dominated by technology and advertising, an organisation must be able to successfully implement AI tools if it wants to remain competitive. In doing so, this will allow companies to reach the very heart of consumers, presenting content that could be more tailored based on their previously expressed preferences, thereby generating cluster analyses that will enable the creation of market niches based on those proclivities.

The key opportunity offered by AI in the marketing field lies in its ability to harness vast amounts of information about users, also known as data mining, in order to influence consumers by filtering and tailoring the results (Overgoor et al., 2019). In a similar study by Deng et al. (2019), the authors delve into the reasons why AI is still a fertile ground for marketing communication from an advertising point of view, with many avenues yet to be explored. Such approaches range from sending personalised advertising (not only in terms of the customer’s name, but also in terms of the products and services of interest to them), to preventing diverse audiences from being exposed to potentially identical advertising.

Another point closely related to AI in marketing, which cannot be omitted, is the relationship between AI and content marketing. The value of this link continues to increase thanks to technology, and especially social networks, which are the channels used to reach potential consumers (Rodríguez Rabadán et al., 2022). Moreover, the future of this type of marketing is being driven directly by AI, with intelligent content reaching users through the combination of AI and traditional marketing (Cuervo-Sánchez, 2021).

In light of the research consulted, we conclude that AI has emerged as a fundamental feature of advertising, which is transforming the way companies connect with their audience. As information continues to flow, and consumer preferences continue to evolve, the ability of AI to analyse data, predict trends, and personalise messages is emerging as an indispensable tool, as argued by Shah et al. (2020). These authors illustrate how the use of algorithms is crucial for determining the impact on the consumer’s purchase decision, which is echoed as well by Reshetkova (2023). In short, this paradigm shift not only boosts operational efficiency, but it also triggers a creative revolution by enabling more precise and relevant advertising strategies. In this scenario, as shown by the research, technology and creativity converge in shaping new advertising narratives and user experiences never seen until now (Fernández Rincón, 2023). Moreover, there is evidence that AI’s ability to process data would be impossible to achieve using conventional methods.

In short, the literature review has revealed changes that go hand in hand with technological advancement. Such transformations are renewing the traditional marketing mix with a new concept based on AI, Big Data, and the IoT (Internet of Things), and are compelling companies to stay up to date with the latest technology, or risk becoming obsolete, which is a warning offered by Rust (2020).

3. Methodology

As we mentioned at the outset, the purpose of this study is to delve into the interest, knowledge, and use of AI by marketing, advertising, and branded content professionals in Spain. To do so, we conducted a self-administered survey based on a sample of these professionals, to whom we sent a questionnaire designed using Google Forms, distributed during the months of November 2023 and February 2024 through a link shared by email.

The sample of this research is deliberate and intentional, which implies addressing a target population. This approach is especially suitable for the purpose of the present study (Bobenrieth Astete, 2012). Rather than trying to represent the knowledge on a given topic on behalf of the whole, the aim is to delve deeper into the analysis by using the testimony of those considered suitable informants (Bologna, 2018). Therefore, the survey strategy used is non-probabilistic with purposive sampling. Moreover, this approach is especially valid for collecting data from specific populations, which is useful for describing social practices, and for discovering cases that can provide a large amount of qualified information on the subject under study (Alaminos, 1993).

Our group of interest is comprised of professionals in the marketing sector in Spain, including the areas of communication, advertising, and branded content, which employed around 122,800 people in 2022 (Orús, 2023). Within this universe, we contacted more than 300 of the country’s leading agencies. These firms were chosen based on the results of research carried out by Top FICE, as well as the rankings of leading agencies in the Eficacia Awards 2023, and the information contained in the following professional directories and specialised publications of the sector: Film Office Madrid’s professional directory (with around 400 entries); IPMARK Directory of Advertising Agencies in Spain 2021 (94 entries); and Puro Marketing (around 440 entries).

The 373 valid responses we received is considered sufficient to obtain relevant results, which came from a sample comprised of the following groups: professionals of both genders (51.2% women); Spanish nationals (94.1%); individuals between 25 and 45 years of age (61.7%); to a lesser extent people over 45 (32.7%); and people with higher education (92%). This is a pioneering study in Spain, which evaluates the way these tools are being received by professionals in the advertising industry.

Most of those surveyed work in advertising agencies (42.6%), followed by communication firms (22.1%), and media outlets (18.5%). Although the companies are of different sizes, those with 10 to 50 employees are the most prevalent (42.9%), followed by those with more than 100 (28.4%).

Regarding the departments where the respondents work, 26.8% belong to the accounts department, followed by the creative area (18.5%), and lastly, the digital section (12.9%). The option of other accounts for 13.4% of the responses, including departments such as Human Resources, Communications, Public Relations, and IT. However, the specific position held by the largest number of respondents is that of creative director, executive, supervisor, or manager. This is followed by those who define their position as managing director, president, CEO, partner, or founder (16.7%). Nearly 70% describe their job category as managerial: of these, 52.7% say they are a director/manager or supervisor, and 17.7% say they are a boss/manager or coordinator.

The specific questions related to the object of the study in this article are as follows:

1.How interested are you in AI technology?

2.How well do you know and master AI technology?

3.How have you acquired your knowledge of AI technology?

4.Do you use AI tools at work?

5.What are the main AI tools you use regularly in your work?

6.How do you mainly access these tools?

7.How often do you use them?

8.What is the main purpose for which you use AI at work?

4. Results

4.1. Interest in AI among marketing and advertising professionals

With a mean of 5.05 (SD= 1.096), on a scale of 1 (not at all) to 6 (very much), respondents were generally very interested in AI, especially Options 4, 5 and 6, which account for 90.3% of the total sample. The data can be seen in Graph 1.

When cross tabulating the variables, men were slightly more enthusiastic than women, with 52.1% of men ticking Option 6, compared to 47.3% for women. However, AI also arouses great interest among female marketing and advertising professionals in Spain, with 52.9% of them ticking Option 5, compared to 47.1% for men. By age, the older people were most interested in AI. In fact, if we look at the younger group first, Options 4, 5 and 6 were selected by 80.9% of those under 25, whereas 89.2% of those between 25 and 45 chose these options, and 94.2% of those over 45 selected them. By educational levels, Option 6 was selected by 46.1% of those with a higher education degree; 40% of those with a high school diploma; and by 36.8% of those with a vocational school certificate.

4.2. Awareness of AI among marketing, advertising, and branded content professionals

Despite their keen interest in this type of tool, the respondents displayed only a moderate level of knowledge about the subject. Specifically, the mean was 3.01 (SD= 1.170), on a scale of 1 to 6. The distribution for all 373 respondents can be seen in Graph 2.

Based on the variables, the perception of knowledge regarding AI is somewhat higher among men. Specifically, 9.9% and 2.2% of all men believe they know quite a lot and a lot, respectively, while the percentages for women are 6.3% and 0.5%, respectively. In terms of age, knowledge of these tools seems to be higher among young people. Some 23.8% of the respondents under the age of 25 say they are quite knowledgeable about these tools, while only 8.3% of those aged 25 to 45 made the same assertion, and the percentage of those over 45 who believe they are quite knowledgeable drops to 5.7%. In general, very few respondents say that they know a lot, and the same is true of those under 25.

Regarding how this knowledge has been acquired, the self-taught approach stands out, which is found in an overwhelming 88% of the cases. Only 12% stated having received specific training in the use of these tools, as shown in Graph 3.

According to the variables, 95.2% of the youngest group trained themselves. Among those aged 25 to 45, this percentage is slightly lower, though still significant at 89.1%. Those over 45 years received specific training more frequently, although this only occurred among 13.9% of the respondents in this group. The gender distribution is nearly the same, with 89% of men and 88% of women having received self-training.

The results point to the need for agencies to be more proactive in offering training, given the interest that exists, and the enormous versatility offered by these tools to the advertising industry, as we will see below.

4.3. Use of AI tools among marketers, advertisers, and branded content professionals

When asked whether AI tools are used at work, 69% of the respondents said yes, and only 31% said no. The data for the entire sample shows that the use of AI in the advertising industry has increased in recent years. This can be seen in Graph 4.

Based on the variables, the reader can see the use of AI by each group:

1.Young people: 76.2% of those under 25 said yes, they use AI tools, compared to 70.4% of those aged 25 to 45, and 63.9% of those over 45.

2.Men: 72.4% answered yes, compared to 65.4% of the women.

3.Higher education graduates: 69.7% answered yes, compared to 60.0% of those with a high school diploma, and 57.9% of those with a vocational school certificate.

4.Employees of large or very small companies: Specifically, 72.6% of those working in companies with more than 100 people said yes to this question, and 70% of those working in agencies with less than 10 people also answered yes.

In terms of the most frequently used technology, Chat GPT stands out, with 251 of the 373 respondents mentioning this tool, which is 67.3% of the total sample. This is followed by Midjourney, which is mentioned by 25.5% of the sample: this tool enables images to be generated from text descriptions. In third place is DeepL, which is mentioned by 25.2% of the respondents. This is a neural machine translation tool that uses deep learning algorithms in order to understand the context and meaning of words, thereby allowing very accurate and natural translations. This has given it a strong reputation in many different sectors.

Other tools mentioned by the respondents are the following:

1.Dall E: 23.1%

2.Grammarly: 9.9%

3.Copy.ai: 7.2%

4.Adobe Sensei. 5,6%

5.Brandwatch: 3.2%

6.Smartly.io: 2.9%

7.Bard: 2.7%

8.Brand24: 2.4%

9.Jasper ai: 1.9%.

In Graph 5, we present the use percentages of each tool for the entire sample.

The results confirm that the most frequently used tools are those designed for general use, while those specific to marketers and advertisers receive fewer mentions. Due to their versatility, it is possible that tools such as Chat GPT and Bard (Google’s AI renamed Gemini since February 2024) can and are being used to generate ideas, create content, personalise messages, conduct market research, and create intelligent chatbots that interact with customers. Consequently, there are big advantages in terms of time savings, increased productivity, improved creativity, and enhanced tailoring of messages through large-scale personalisation. Along with these tools, there are others specifically designed for marketing, advertising, and branded content professionals, which include the following:

1.Brandwatch Consumer Intelligence: a social data analysis platform that allows users to explore online conversations about a brand and its competitors, providing potentially valuable information regarding consumers’ thoughts, feelings, and behaviour. Two examples of its usefulness include crisis management, as well as new product development.

2.Smartly.io: this tool uses AI to simplify and optimise the entire lifecycle of a multi-channel advertising campaign. It can be used to increase campaign efficiency and performance, generate a variety of personalised ads for different audiences, and facilitate data-driven decision making.

3.Brand24: with a similar purpose and operation, this instrument also allows real-time social listening, which can be highly useful for detecting mentions, analysing feelings related to the brand, and identifying influencers. All of this allows brand reputation to be managed more quickly and efficiently.

Despite their potential, these tools were only mentioned by 3.2%, 2.9% and 2.4% of respondents, respectively.

Although tools for writing and creating content are not widely used, they can be a valuable source of inspiration for these tasks, if used correctly. For example, Copy.ai combines the skills of an advertising copywriter, scriptwriter, and general copywriter, offering broad versatility for generating and structuring ideas, writing advertising copy, creating content for social networks, developing scripts for videos, podcasts, and presentations, and writing emails. Another tool that stands out in this area is Jasper, which uses algorithms involving advanced, natural language processing (NLP), for the purpose of creating texts that can be adapted to different tones and styles. Moreover, such tools save time by automating repetitive tasks, and they are scalable and adaptable to large volumes of content. However, Copy.ai received only 7.2% mentions, and Jasper received an even lower proportion at 1.9%.

The use of AI tools to generate images is more common, especially in the case of Midjourney and Dall E, as well as Leonardo and Stable Diffusion, although the latter are used to a lesser extent.

Among those who employ these tools, the use of a personal freemium subscription stands out, with 31.6% of the total sample opting for this approach. This is followed by access through a company subscription, which stands at 22.3%. Finally, some 14.7% stated that they access AI tools through a premium or basic personal subscription, as seen in Graph 6.

In terms of frequency of use, the average is 3.39 on a scale of 1 to 6 (SD= 1.530). The specific results are as follows: 12.9% of the respondents said they do not use AI tools at all; 18.4% rarely use them; and 21.5% use them only occasionally. Among those who say they use these tools, 22.3% state using them fairly often, 13.7% say quite often, and 11.3% say they use them very frequently. The results can be seen in Graph 7.

When asked about the main purpose for which they use AI, the most frequently mentioned are shown in Table 1.

The data for the entire sample can be seen in Graph 8.

5. Discussion and conclusions

After analysing and reflecting on the information obtained from this research, it can be concluded that AI is revolutionising the marketing, advertising, and branded content panorama in Spain. Its applications are vast and increasingly sophisticated, ranging from hyper-segmented, personalised advertising campaigns based on demographic and behavioural data, to the creation of large-scale, personalised content using tools for generating text and images. Moreover, AI has transformed the customer’s experience through intelligent chatbots and virtual assistants, in addition to having optimised supply chain management by predicting demand. Furthermore, emotion analysis on social media allows brands to better understand their audience and adjust their strategies in real time.

Along with general AI tools, which have been widely adopted by professionals in many different sectors, there is a growing number of AI instruments designed specifically for the advertising industry. Moreover, they continue to grow at a rapid pace.

The findings of this study indicate a clear trend toward the gradual adoption of these tools by a considerable number of professionals in the sector under study. Although their role is still limited and mainly associated with tasks that are routine and mechanical, their use has spread to a variety of other work as well. Consequently, professionals resort to these tools mainly to streamline processes, optimise resources, and save time, as well as improve productivity and effectiveness, as they are mainly used for tasks that are tedious and repetitive. Such tasks include translating, summarising and synthesising content, conducting research and information queries, and collecting data. Using AI for more creative tasks such as writing, design, and artwork still appears to be unexplored. Thus, it seems clear that the main purpose of these tools is to process large amounts of data, learn from this information, and automate repetitive tasks, while jobs linked to more complex objectives, such as strategic or creative decision-making, appear to use AI only moderately.

This conclusion is bolstered by the findings of this study, which have pinpointed the tools most frequently used by professionals in this sector. These are mostly general-use tools, which are used as a kind of crutch: in other words, these instruments are employed mainly to improve and streamline processes, and for assisting with minor issues.

This limited use of specific AI tools may be due to a lack of knowledge regarding their capabilities, as well as impediments in gaining access to them. Thus, compared to the enormous interest aroused by these resources among professionals in this sector, it is striking to note the modest level of knowledge of their use, which highlights the fact that this aspect is still being developed, and that more intensive training is required.

Furthermore, this knowledge is mostly self-taught at the present time, mainly through personal licences, which often do not allow full access nor comprehensive use of the multiple options offered by these tools. This trend confirms a high level of interest in AI, and even reflects a proactive attitude among professionals in pursuing and adapting to this new technology. However, it appears that agencies are not fully committed to this technology, as they display shortcomings in providing their employees with access to the various applications available. Therefore, it is imperative to reinforce this type of training, and at the same time encourage employees to familiarise themselves with the different options provided by AI. In this way, they can take full advantage of the features offered by these tools in order to address the advertising challenges they will face in a competitive and effective way.

In summary, the results of this study suggest that AI is poised to play an increasingly important role in the work of marketing, advertising, and branded content professionals. However, it is essential for them to acquire the skills needed to use these tools effectively and ethically in order to get the most out of them. To this end, there is a clear need for companies to invest in further training for their employees. However, if this occurs, it might result in a situation where only those agencies with the capability of making such investments will be able to compete in this field, which could possibly lead to unequal access to these skills among different professionals.

Authors’ contributions

Cristina del Pino-Romero: Conceptualization; Formal Analysis; Investigation; Methodology; Validation. Susana Asenjo-McCabe: Contextualization, Formal analysis, Investigation, Writing- original draft; Susana Herrera-Damas: Investigation, Validation, Conceptualization; Formal analysis; Methodology; Writing- original draft; Writing- review and editing. All authors have read and agree to the published version of the manuscript.

Conflicts of interest

The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.

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