Current state and future development of artificial intelligence in marketing

Abstract

Artificial intelligence (AI) has emerged as a trend in various industries. In the marketing field, artificial intelligence has been the main driver of its growth and an important tool for companies, organisations, and marketing specialists. However, there is a gap between the existing AI research and the actual application of the technologies in marketing. To bridge the gap, this study focuses on the current state of research on artificial intelligence in marketing and AI technologies used in marketing. Research articles on this topic are searched from the ScienceDirect database and the IEEE Xplore database and the non-empirical studies are filtered out by selection criteria. Then the selected articles are analysed using the method of bibliometrics and content analysis. This study describes the landscape of research in artificial intelligence in marketing, summarises AI technologies applied in the marketing field, provides advice on applying AI applications to marketing for marketing specialists, and presents future research directions for AI specialists. Results show that the application of AI in marketing will increase fast in the coming years. In particular, companies and organisations may greatly benefit from the use of AI technology in marketing to increase sales, cut costs, improve firm productivity, boost innovation, and achieve organisational goals.