With all of the attention focused on #chatgpt and its potential to disrupt how brands deliver marketing, it’s worth a larger discussion about where we are in the journey and where we are really headed, as I think all of us have a good understanding of #AI’s ability to perform basic tasks, particularly the endless blog posting hat we’re all familiar with at this point.
First, what is Generative AI?
Simply put, the machines can now create vs providing observation…and the interesting thing is that we are entering an era where the inputs can be pretty unstructured. McKinsey & Company does a good job laying out the basic use cases in the 2 links below:
https://www.mckinsey.com/featured-insights/mckinsey-explainers/what-is-generative-ai
Practical Applications Today
In my personal experiments with Generative AI, the struggle manifests itself when opinion is involved, so we have a long way to go of course. But there are areas in marketing where there are known inputs and a basic set of structures, Generative AI should be poised to perform tasks in areas like:
- Non-conceptual content and copy: Think support materials such as sales literature, product support, etc. where there are a set of known facts or inputs and there’s the need to dig into those inputs to generate an answer. And yes, if you’re looking to bang out a bunch of blog posts, you can do that too
- Basic sales and service tasks: Upper funnel prospect contact or customer service are also areas in which there are a set of routines or known inputs. The poor customer call center interfaces that exist today should be the first to go!
- Personalized marketing based on profile or behavior: We are well along that path with the growth of programmatic media, but there is huge room for improvement in building out profiles of attributes and behaviors (in a permissioned way of course) and allowing Generative AI to assemble assets and deliver “right time, right place” messages
What We’re Seeing As The Next Wave
As routine tasks become improved, #generativeai should go into an adolescence where growing degrees of conceptual understanding and context can be applied (I think we are quite a way away from this as a practical matter). Think about:
- Media and marketing planning: Certainly, we’re a long way away from displacing media professionals, but AI will soon be able to power media mix and spending decisions based on the huge trove of behavioral data now available
- Customer journeys: Again, here is an area where a lot of subjectivity can be taken out of the process based on interaction and outcome data
- Strategic communications: In reactive PR situations (such as responding to a controversy or crisis), PR professionals will have access to language, channels, etc. that have the most favorable impact on consumer sentiment, stock price, sales, etc.
It should be a fascinating journey, please weigh in with your thoughts and opinions and we will keep our eye on the landscape as it evolves.
