Why Your Best Marketers Are Secretly Struggling With AI (And How To Fix It)

Sixty-seven percent of professionals cite lack of education as the top barrier to AI adoption, while 77% of workers using AI report enhanced job performance and potential time savings of one full workday per week, worth about $16,455 annually per worker. Only 15% of marketers say they couldn't live without AI. Only 26% of organizations offer AI training. Women are about 20 percentage points less likely to use ChatGPT than men, with lack of training the primary barrier; men more often cite employer restrictions. Senior marketers need permission, psychological safety, and structured support to learn AI and realize productivity gains.

Your best marketers are about to become even better. While 67% of professionals cite lack of education as their top barrier to AI adoption, the real story is more nuanced and more hopeful. Your senior team members, the ones who've mastered every marketing evolution from print to digital to social, are ready for their next transformation. They just need something they haven't had to ask for in years: permission to learn. And when you give it to them, the results are extraordinary.

According to research synthesized in my industry report, 77% of workers using AI believe it enhances their job performance, with potential time savings of one full workday per week. That's worth approximately $16,455 per worker annually. Yet despite these impressive benefits, only 15% of marketers say they "couldn't live without" AI. This gap between potential and enthusiasm isn't about resistance or inability. It's about something more fundamental. It's about the need for psychological safety in learning.

Now they're confronted with technology that seems to challenge everything they've mastered. The research reveals that only 26% of organizations offer AI training, leaving talented professionals to navigate this transformation alone. The challenge intensifies when we consider that women are 20 percentage points less likely to use ChatGPT than their male counterparts, with lack of training cited as their primary barrier.

Read at Forbes