Conversational AI trends shift toward marketing pilots and targeted advertising

The landscape of conversational AI is expanding into both marketing utility and targeted advertising. In the marketing sector, leaders are increasingly adopting generative AI to manage customer engagement. Research from Gartner indicates that 85% of customer service leaders intend to pilot customer-facing conversational AI in 2025. Experts suggest that companies should begin with small-scale pilots, such as lead capture on single landing pages, while maintaining strict governance, data disclosure, and human handoff protocols for sensitive topics.

Simultaneously, concerns regarding data privacy have emerged regarding how AI platforms utilize user information. Reports indicate that OpenAI allows advertisers to target users by uploading email lists, phone numbers, and device identifiers to build custom audiences. While OpenAI requires a minimum of 25,000 matched users for active inclusion campaigns and states that uploaded records are deleted within 24 hours, privacy researchers warn that many users are unaware their prompts and contact details may influence the commercial messages and sponsor cards they encounter during sessions.