The Role of AI in Strategic Marketing Decision-Making

Particularly in marketing, there is a great potential for the use of AI. To date, AI applications in marketing practice have focused primarily on automating processes at the operational level, such as customer support chatbots or product recommendation systems, and on gaining insights from big data, e.g., to analyze customer sentiment or build advanced segmentation models. However, there is a growing expectation in academia that AI has the potential to support, augment, or even replace marketing managers in strategic-level decision-making. So, in the future, will AI decide which markets companies tackle, which products they launch, or which communication and pricing strategy they pursue?

Digging deeper: How will humans and smart machines collaborate in strategic decision-making?

Previous studies indicate that managers accept to give algorithms some weight in managerial decisions, but they still want to keep a certain level of control. However, the question how such a human-machine collaboration (HMC) on a strategic level might look like on concrete terms remains largely unanswered. In this study, we provide a comprehensive overview of the status quo and venture a look into the future by examining managers' images of the future and their preferences for interacting with intelligent machines when making strategic marketing decisions.

Method: combining qualitative expert insights with an international C-level survey

In the first phase of the project, we interview experts, including marketing managers, marketing consultants, data science experts, and marketing academics, to get an initial overview of the research field and gain deep qualitative insights.

In the second project phase, we use a standardized survey study (CATI) to gain empirical evidence from high-level executives (C-suite or direct reports) responsible for marketing or corporate strategy. We focus on managers from B2C-companies on the Global Forbes 2000 list. This high-quality sample allows us to draw conclusions about state-of-the-art implementation on a global level.

In this study we will...

• present and validate a five-category model to evaluate the role of AI in collaboration with human managers, ranging from "no AI involved" to "Assistant", "Collaborator", "Project Manager" and "Manager".
• examine differences between concrete types of marketing decisions and between specific tasks within decision-making processes.
• explore obstacles that hinder the implementation of AI in strategic level decision-making and gain insights how pioneers overcame them.
• examine implications for managers and marketing staff regarding future tasks and expertise.

(Results will be published on this website.)