The marketing industry is constantly evolving and new technology is changing the way we communicate with our customers, and we, as marketers need to adapt in order to stay in touch. Artificial intelligence (AI) has the potential to change the way we market forever, but how can we harness its capability?
Marketers are already using AI to improve their content creation process to generate ideas, identify patterns in data and suggest new ways of doing things. But what about using AI when it comes to original thought and creativity?
What is AI?
Artificial intelligence includes many types of software systems which are designed to perform tasks normally done by humans. These systems may be able to learn from experience, including learning from examples provided by humans, other computers or by extracting content from large amounts of data. They may also be able to understand their environment through sensors such as cameras or microphones and make decisions based on complex reasoning (e.g., computer vision).
Is AI just another buzzword?
Artificial intelligence is not just about automating the mundane tasks of customer service, but also about inspiring a more creative thought process. It can provide content that helps marketers think outside the box and so support ideas, creativity and content creation. And it helps us develop more human-like experiences for our customers.
However, it’s important to remember when using AI it can be applied as a marketing assistant that supports the human creative processes by gathering data and insights from many sources, learning from past experiences, and providing recommendations based on customer needs. This can be huge saving on time and, in many cases, limited resources allowing human expertise to focus on the most important elements of a marketing/creative campaign, the creative content.
It can also be used as a “virtual assistant” to automate tasks associated with digital marketing campaigns and optimize the allocation of resources.
Research shows that marketers are looking for AI to support them in creating original, compelling content that is relevant to their audience but the word ‘support’ not ‘replace’ is one of great importance.
AI can support original thought and content creation for marketers. This is important as more than half (52%) of consumers want to see brands using AI in the form of machine learning to improve the customer experience, according to research by McKinsey & Company.
In fact, a quarter of marketing professionals surveyed by Adobe this year said they were already using various types of AI such as predictive analytics and machine learning in their work. However, the article goes on to say:
“Creative professionals have strong opinions about how generative AI is developed and deployed. They are very invested in how this technology evolves, and care deeply about a range of issues. Here’s how they rank:
- 83 percent think transparency around whether artwork was created using generative AIis important
- 83 percent say having a voice in how generative AI is developed is important
- 83 percent say transparency about the data used to train generative AI models is important
- 80 percent say it’s important for content created with generative AI to be safe for commercial use
- 77 percent say it’s important to counter AI-driven bias
This research illustrates that creative professionals see opportunity in generative AI’s potential, and are increasingly interested in finding ways to benefit from the new technology.”
In summary
We believe AI tools will make us more efficient and better at what we already do. At Two Lizards we see Artificial Intelligence as a friend, not a foe. We’re already using AI as a virtual assistant, to help us tackle problems and provide us with fresh inspiration. A lot of routine tasks can be done far more cost-effectively by machine, and this allows marketing professionals like us to put more time and effort into original thinking and creative direction – which is where our real value lies.