• by Laurie Sullivan , Staff Writer @lauriesullivan, September 30, 2016

More than half of companies participating in a recent survey said the applications they find the most essential apply intelligence, meaning that they have the ability to anticipate the outcome and take or suggest the next action. The intense focus on artificial intelligence at Advertising Week supports this point.

Fifty-three percent of executives at companies that describe their most essential applications as intelligent are two times more likely to believe they will exceed their goals this year. The best companies are focused on translating overwhelming collections of data into intuitive experiences to power customer moments.

The study -- released by Bluewolf, an IBM consulting firm -- focuses on Salesforce, but the findings provide much more insight into human behavior and what makes marketers and advertisers successful. The study focuses on "how the best companies use Salesforce," as the name of the study suggests, but if we take Salesforce out of the equation and analyze human behavior we can see some of the same traits in others.

With Watson’s Alchemy Language and Personality Insights APIs, Bluewolf analyzed over 10 hours of executive interviews and 8,300 open text responses on the opportunities, challenges, and innovation potential with Salesforce. Replace "Salesforce" with the ability to innovate, know what data to use, and support automation to understand the behavior.

Revenue growth and data quality are the two most important drivers for any marketer. It's essential to understand how to use the data in order to achieve the goal. Those who seem to understand how to make data work for their companies have these five traits: self-efficacy, cautiousness, intensity, sympathy, and altruism.

Individuals with high altruism scores were cooperative and have trust and helpful natures, which I found interesting.

What type of marketer owns these traits, according to the Bluewolf study? Marketers willing to invest in analytics and intelligent applications, multiple cloud services. They also show a willingness to change, and focus on user experiences.