Exploring AI Adoption in Entrepreneurial Content Marketing Strategies of European Companies

Sammanfattning: Artificial intelligence has recently gained enormous attention due to its potential to revolutionize many industries. One of these areas of interest where AI may have the potential to have a significant impact is content marketing. The scientific community has studied AI for many years to build an understanding of what purposes it could be used for. However, few studies have examined how and why AI is adopted by companies today to leverage it for entrepreneurial marketing purposes and what the diffusion of this technology looks like in society. This master thesis investigated how the adoption process of AI tools looks today by conducting a literature review and performing interviews with 12 leading decision makers of marketing. Data from the primary collection was analysed using thematic analysis, and seven themes were discovered. The results identified several perceived benefits of adopting new AI tools, including improved efficiency, user-friendliness and saving resources like time and money. The findings also revealed a potential connection between technology adoption and the user's background, where priority exposure to novel technology contributed to the ease of adoption. The practical implications from a user-centric point of view indicated that language models like ChatGPT could be leveraged to optimize content creation for social media and SEO (Search Engine Optimisation). Other AI tools can be used for email marketing campaigns, such as Nifty and Zapier AI, which can automate tasks and enhance personalization. AI text-generators such as Copy.ai and Grammarly can be used to improve brand communication, and image-generating tools like DALL-e may be used for content creation. From a producer-centric point of view, the findings suggest the importance of intuitive user-friendliness and pricing when designing AI tools. Communication of these benefits and understanding specific use cases may be crucial for developing tools and their marketing. Overall, this study highlighted the factors influencing the adoption and leverage of AI tools to enhance entrepreneurial marketing efforts.