Internships have all the time been the easiest way to get hands-on expertise in a brand new discipline, however college students and rising professionals have been questioning if the rise of AI will make these positions out of date. New analysis from data-driven software program advice agency GetApp reveals the opposite—greater than one-third (36 p.c) of small and midsize companies say that AI will really improve the demand for advertising and marketing interns in 2024.
The SMB-focused agency’s new 2023 AI Impression Survey of 400 SMBs finds that the demand for interns is fueled by the rising use of AI know-how. Over half (52 p.c) of SMBs leverage AI for marketing-related duties or features, so it’s no shock then that 42 p.c of companies are on the lookout for AI expertise or expertise when hiring a brand new intern. Moreover, 71 p.c would pay extra for advertising and marketing interns with AI expertise or expertise.
SMBs charge information evaluation as a extremely helpful software of AI as it may well simply assist speed up elements of information processing and interpretation. To that finish, these companies say they’d most like their interns to leverage AI for these marketing-related duties: analyzing information (48 p.c), lowering errors (42 p.c), and growing the velocity or effectivity of workflows or processes (36 p.c).
The academic side of internships offers approach to an usually mutually helpful relationship: Interns get real-world expertise and mentorship, whereas corporations get to leverage various expertise and faucet into potential new expertise. Growing expertise is a prime driver (41 p.c) for SMBs to leverage internships, together with encouraging mentorship (42 p.c) and growing productiveness (40 p.c).
Amid the attract of AI’s potential, SMBs should attempt to steadiness know-how integration and human functionality. Greater than half (56 p.c) of SMBs imagine that lower than 25 p.c of marketing-related tasks carried out by interns can realistically be carried out by AI, indicating that human involvement stays important. Moreover, 76 p.c respondents choose offloading work to a human versus software program.
Moreover, 51 p.c of SMBs imagine that AI might hinder the experiences of promoting interns of their roles. These companies are largely involved about AI’s function in lowering problem-solving expertise, hands-on studying, and artistic expression. One approach to keep away from these potential pitfalls is to leverage project-based studying that gives alternatives for data constructing.
“Regardless of AI’s disruptive influence on the job market, it gained’t substitute advertising and marketing interns at SMBs,” mentioned Meghan Bazaman, senior advertising and marketing analyst at GetApp, in a information launch. ”Slightly, AI can function a helpful useful resource for interns to raise their capabilities with out eliminating hands-on studying expertise. This in the end helps SMBs domesticate a robust pipeline of promoting expertise and promote a growth-oriented surroundings.”
