How does AI change public relations and marketing?

[Translated from Chinese by AI.]

The AI wave is rolling in, and for the public relations and marketing industry that has existed for over a century, it is finally about to usher in some exciting moments, even surpassing mobile internet and completely changing the way people communicate with interfaces, machines, and brands. The way information is sent and obtained will also undergo changes, and there will be a steady stream of surprises in the next decade.

How will AI change content production, customer/client engagement, and the dissemination of public opinion/news? How will it evolve on the existing landscape? Let’s make some bold guesses.

One way to think about it is to look back at how mobile internet has reshaped content production, consumer communication, and public opinion dissemination.

Firstly, the rise of social media has led to a decentralized discourse arena. This makes several things possible: a. Brands are more easily able to shape and influence consumers and public opinion; b. Crisis events are more likely to ferment and spread; c. Brands can establish larger, looser or tighter communities.

Secondly, the transformation of traditional media. Graphical, long/short videos, content spread across various platforms, and the rise of self-media. From general content to gradually moving towards vertical content. Brands have more bargaining power.

Thirdly, the rise and combination of e-commerce and live-streaming. Live-streaming finds the most suitable application scenario, and online/offline linkage becomes possible. This brings data tracking, precise delivery, user incubation, etc., making fine management possible.

At the same time, on the product side, e-commerce and data enable targeted design, personalized customization, and co-creation to be realized, although this part is still small in proportion to the total product supply.

How will AI change this situation?

It is foreseeable that the way content is produced will change. AI+human allows for faster, more efficient, lower-cost production of text, images, and even videos, with shorter collaboration links.

Product co-creation and reverse customization will also become easier, especially in terms of product appearance, packaging, and promotion.

In addition, will there be unexpected changes?

For example, will there still be e-commerce? Or will the bargaining power of e-commerce be greatly reduced?

In the future, it is likely that everyone will have a networked AI assistant that becomes more familiar with your personality and needs as you interact with it. AI will help you compare prices across the entire network and select the most suitable products based on price, logistics, and after-sales service. If authorized, AI can also read e-commerce and social media comments and provide recommendations.

Does this mean that decision-making and purchasing links will become shorter, pre-sales and after-sales will be more unified, and marketing and customer service functions will be unified? AI ingests content — brand information, news, social media topics — and then spits it out to consumers and users.

To compete for territory, information and content will continue to flood in massive quantities. Communication between brands and consumers throughout the “lifecycle” becomes more important.

Of course, whether there will be a universal, independent, cross-platform AI assistant remains uncertain, and even if there is, whether it will be led by software or hardware manufacturers cannot be determined.

In the past, information (news, social topics) was obtained by people looking for information, but with the addition of AI, the two will merge into one, and new content applications may appear, covering text, images, and videos.

For example, a new form of social media — dating apps — could allow AI to help users screen people who match their background, values, and interests, and automatically chat with the other party a few times to help the user make a decision. Or new social ways, topic/entertainment content co-creation, mutual aid groups/communities, etc. This means that brands need to have stronger abilities to set topics and produce content.

If the way information is obtained changes, do the masses and brands still need so many celebrities, internet celebrities, and KOLs? After all, digital and virtual people can be supplied infinitely.

However, these speculations may be too small and lack imagination, based on an extension of the existing landscape, while the form of new species will be radically different.

From a historical perspective, the large-scale application of technology sometimes differs completely from the initial concept, and the initial technology/machine becomes the parent of the next generation of technology/machines. The evolution and mutation of technology are amazing. Let’s hope we can see what the future world will look like together.