Mark Mayer: Marketers are embracing AI while retreating to safety - Indianapolis Business Journal

Your competitors are buying AI tools. Most of them aren't using them either. That $200/month subscription collecting dust? You're not alone. A new report shows companies are rushing into AI adoption

Your competitors are buying AI tools.
Most of them aren't using them either.

That $200/month subscription collecting dust? You're not alone. A new report shows companies are rushing into AI adoption while quietly playing it safe — experimenting at the edges without committing to anything that actually changes results. Sound familiar?

Here's what that tells me: the problem isn't your business. It's the approach.

Most AI rollouts fail before they start because someone picked a tool before they identified the problem. Marketing platforms get purchased because they looked impressive in a demo. Then reality hits — your team has no time to learn it, no clear use case, and no one accountable for making it work.

The companies seeing real ROI from AI right now aren't doing more. They're doing less, but smarter. They picked one broken process, found one tool that fixes it, and measured results in weeks — not quarters.

This week, write down the single most repetitive task your marketing team does. Just one. That's your starting point. Not a platform. Not a strategy. One task.

That's where your first win lives.

What's the one AI tool you paid for that your team never actually adopted — and what got in the way?

#AIStrategy #SmallBusiness #MarketingROI #BusinessGrowth

Original Source

Yes, AI adoption continues to surge. Yes, digital marketing continues to demonstrate strong business value, and companies are becoming increasingly ...