Sprout social: 2023 social media report

According to a survey by Sprout Social, 71% of social media marketers have integrated artificial intelligence and machine learning (ML) tools (such as ChatGPT, DALL-E-2) into their social media workflows.

82% of this group of marketers have added AI and machine learning technologies to their social media workflows and have seen positive results for them.

The most common benefit of implementing these technologies was increased productivity in social media management tasks, cited by 61% of respondents. This was also the outcome respondents most wanted these technologies to provide, indicating that they do get value from integrating these tools.

Meanwhile, nearly half of respondents said social media content is more accurately targeted to specific audiences (49%) and the content management process is faster (47%), again in line with marketers’ goals for the use of AI and machine learning technologies.

Currently, few say their use of AI and machine learning has resulted in a decrease in paid social spend (15%) or an increase in customer pipeline (12%), but these are not the outcomes marketers are hoping to achieve from these tools either.

As for marketers who have not yet integrated AI and machine learning tools into their social media workflows, only 5% said they have no plans to use them. The majority of respondents (55%) expect to adopt these technologies within the next six months, and about 80% expect to adopt them within the next year.

Expanding the research to the entire sample of social media marketers, the report shows that respondents believe the most useful application of AI and machine learning technology is ad targeting, with 69% of respondents listing it as one of the top five most useful technology applications.

In addition to ad targeting, marketers surveyed also see value in using these technologies for content creation.