How AI Is Changing the Words Brands Use With Customers
Published January 31, 2022 by Coresight Research in partnership with Persado, this deep-dive report examines how natural language processing, natural language generation, and AI-driven personalization are changing digital marketing. The authors focus on four trends: AI-generated content, AI-powered personalization, the effective use of first-party data, and the enhanced customer experiences that result when all three come together.
Authored by Deborah Weinswig, CEO and Founder of Coresight Research, with analysis by Mili Gloria Peter and Steven Winnick. Based on an online survey of 165 US-based senior executives conducted in November 2021.
What the 2021 Coresight Survey Revealed
The survey found that AI is no longer a fringe initiative in digital marketing — it is mainstream infrastructure, with a clear through-line from content generation to personalization to customer experience.
- Content generation goes mainstream: 72.2% of organizations either currently use AI for creative content generation or plan to within the next 12 months. 41.2% already use NLP to generate content, making it one of the top three ways organizations are experimenting with AI in digital marketing.
- AI is held accountable: 78.3% of respondents hold AI accountable for creative development and execution — meaning they track the measurable impact of AI-generated words and phrases, rather than treating AI as a black-box creative tool.
- Personalization leads the AI agenda: 53.9% of respondents are currently using AI or ML to offer personalized customer experiences, and 74.5% agree that AI helps manage the challenges of personalization at scale.
- First-party data is foundational: 78.2% of respondents cite effective use of first-party data as "very" or "extremely" important to their AI strategy. 86.1% already use first-party data for marketing — a critical pivot as third-party cookies phase out.
- Real results at scale: JPMorgan Chase signed a five-year deal with Persado in 2019 and has seen up to 450% lift in click-through rates on AI-generated ads, compared with a typical 50%–200% range.
Treat AI as a Measurable Colleague, Not a Black Box
Coresight's central recommendation is that marketers treat AI as a "colleague" — one whose outputs are measurable, auditable, and held to performance standards. The 78.3% of respondents already doing this are able to quantify return on marketing spend on AI, which in turn unlocks bigger budgets and wider deployment. Organizations that cannot measure their AI outputs tend to stall in pilot phase.
The practical implication for CMOs is that the winning workflow combines three ingredients: AI-driven content generation, first-party data as the underlying signal, and a disciplined measurement layer that keeps every AI-produced asset accountable for the performance it drives. One Fortune 500 retailer highlighted in the report used Persado's platform to deliver a 19% conversion lift on homepage messaging in three months and $50 million in revenue growth over one year — precisely the kind of compounding outcome that becomes possible once measurement, language, and data are all in place.
Download the full Coresight report for the complete survey methodology, figures, and industry-by-industry breakdown.
