Future of Artificial Intelligence in Marketing
When talking about future of artificial intelligence in marketing, it is often assumed that AI technology might affect the marketing industry. However, the truth is that it will be marketing who will have a big impact on AI. That is because AI itself, at least for now, lacks cognitive processing, while marketing is built around emotional and psychological aspect of consumer’s experience. Combining AI and marketing will result in providing more predictive strategies than our current prescriptive strategies from machine learning.
Marketing industry must determine the inputs for AI to learn from which must be ethical and responsible. Even though marketing strategies have been adapted to AI by most departments, real adaptation is thinking about all of the potential outputs that could happen with inputs. We must make that adaptation work for our customers, not just for a business.
The key to future of marketing might not be about execution on the different technologies, but in finding the reason why these technologies exist and how they were built. Despite many educational institutions teaching social media in marketing courses, many people still don’t understand the base principles of interaction and sociology. In fast-paced world it would be best to focus on teaching reflection, innovation and experience. AI’s technology future role greatly depends on us as society, but as an industry we can definitely say that the trend of building and implementing will continue. We must always remember that technology is a tool, not a solution. We shall use it to enrich our ideas and processes, not a solution to our challenges.
Human intelligence will be required as long as humans exist, because there has been almost no development of creating conscious computing to date. Since marketing is really centered around the idea that consumers can be more satisfied and happier if they use their product or think like them, it takes a level of subjective expectation-setting that technology will not be able to achieve for quite some time, or ever. Technology and information cannot replace feelings, yet we as marketing industry must adapt our future to better understand those feelings and form a connection with consumers. When we analyse the four Ps (product, price, promotion, place), we can easily see that these will inevitably be guided by AI. However, the idea of conscious marketing adds the fifth P of purpose, and that’s where human intelligence is irreplaceable. The idea or expectation of an experience, is something that only humans have the ability to conceive — and that’s where human intelligence will be most important in marketing.
Using AI, brands are studying user needs, behaviors and predicting their future actions.
Some of the key areas where companies have been leveraging AI globally include: Predictive analysis, Reach out at the right time, Personalizing user experience, Enhancing customer service, Better and faster decisions with deep learning…
- Predictive analysis could be described as AI’s competence to handle a large volume of data.
Finding reasons and patterns among this data has given marketers exceptional ability to make data-driven predictions and decisions. Consumers today expect personalized experiences that push rather than pull. Predictive analytics allow marketers to better target audiences, reaching them with content they actually care about. Data acquired from customer searches and buying behaviors is used to customize content at the individual level, while insights gained through cognitive intelligence drive smart recommendations for tailored experiences that shorten the purchase journey.
- Reach out at the right time is when AI identifies the target audience based on their interests, focus, likes, etc and decides the target group.
- Personalizing user experience can help in having have customer insights, engagement rates and track customer satisfaction. As personalization becomes even more sophisticated, mass marketing will be replaced by intimate one-to-one marketing across all customer touch points.
- Enhancing customer service comes handy at times when issues get complicated. An intelligent support system will have a certain capability to direct customers towards parallel support channels. Virtual assistants meet customer needs in real time, providing feedback to questions, resolving simple issues, and offering round the clock support. Many companies are already leveraging such platforms, both on the B2B and B2C fronts.
- Better, Faster Decisions With Deep Learning — AI systems, particularly those that rely on deep learning, excel at quickly analyzing mountains of big data. Learning algorithms recognize patterns and identify relationships with limited or no supervision. When marketing intelligence is gathered more quickly, marketers can make media-buying and content-placement choices more quickly too. With predictive abilities, deep learning simplifies campaign optimization.
Despite significant hype and some confusion in the market, investment in AI remains high. Most marketing departments that haven’t already implemented AI technology have ambitious plans to do so in the near future.
As technology evolves at a rapid pace, and AI-powered applications often arrive bringing uncertainty. However, marketing leaders have opinion that new insights, better forecasting, and more creative organizations are a good thing. . In the next few years, it is expected to see marketers at all levels engaging in more creative thinking and less routine work. Basic, mundane tasks will be done almost entirely by machines. AI-powered technologies will increase teams’ abilities to react to change in the moment, avoiding lengthy campaign planning and drawn-out strategy. Increased responsiveness means the end of irrelevant communication, as brands will finally be able to capture and engage the right audience with messaging that resonates at the right time.
