Who’ll retire first? Your communication worker or your CMS? — Canecto.com

Letting AI do your web analytics will change how web analytics is done forever. Automatic web analytics is coming and it will change forever how you do web analytics. Here is how.

Just like the automotive industry, the world of content management is facing a paradigm shift.

Automatic learning of behaviour fundamentally changes the experience of the final user.

In the automotive world, we’re changing from owning gas cars with manual gears that are parked for 95% of the car’s life to having access to electric, self-driving cars that are a service we use when needed.

Canecto’s solution can identify what’s wrong with the content on a website and see which pages aren’t performing. We call it automatic website analytics. The system also knows which content parameters need to be changed for the web page to perform as it should. But, it’s still up to the webmaster to make the necessary changes to improve the website.

In other words, we’ve built the automatic transmission, but we’re asking the driver to change gears manually.

Always based on fact, not opinion

When we get right down to it, the human contribution to websites will be completely different in the future. Management attitudes about colour selections will mean nothing. Content that’s the result of internal, political negotiation between departments will no longer exist. Content that’s not maintained because of low prioritisation or insufficient time is the past. Users will always see the content the system has learned performs best in their particular situation.

Focus on content elements

In today’s world, website owners are focused on building a library of content elements for the system to draw on. There are texts to write, there must be a large photo and video library, etc. All content combinations can be easily published using standard design templates.

But why stop there? If you can adjust the content and composition on a website according to the users’ behaviour patterns, then why not adjust navigation and user flows as well?

Website on demand

It makes sense to have a website that functions on an on-demand principle. Meaning the content users see is created based on the experience the system has with the users. There is no fixed navigational structure on the website, there are no fixed user flows, and forget about creating sitemaps.

The entire user experience is created in real time around the visitor and is based on what the system has learned about them and what they respond to best, in its experience.

In such a world, it makes no sense to talk about use cases, A/B testing, etc., because they reflect an old-fashioned way of thinking, where we build a system, test an area until it works well enough, and then move our focus to a new area.

It will no longer make sense to talk about Content Management Systems as we know them today.

After all, the systems that currently exist on the market reflect an outdated thought process where web pages are published based on a hierarchic navigational structure. This is “inside-out thinking,” where I as the provider of the content on my website decide what and how you as a visitor need to access.

In the new world, I as the publisher of a website make my content available to the visitors, after which a decision is made by the real-time learning algorithms as to what they see. So, there you go, the Content Management System is dead.

Communication will change

And next is the communications employee. Fortunately, employees involved in communication won’t die, but their role will be changed significantly. The tasks they need to solve will change in character.

Soon it will be possible to create text that’s generated automatically so it’s suited to the recipient. Your vacation e-mail can be written automatically, giving your mother, your girlfriend, and your boss different versions of the same basic text.

Content automation

This technology will naturally gain ground in the world of internet publishing. It will stand to reason to automate customisation of text content, so the bank analyst and the teenager read different descriptions of the same mobile phone on Sony’s website.

In such a world, there is a higher emphasis on being analytical and having a business and numbers mind. There will also be the issue of weighing “manual text” against “automatic text”. Therefore, the role for the communications employee doesn’t die, but they must think differently. There will be less of a focus on creating good “manual” text and content than there is currently.

Fact-based way of content publishing

You also develop a much more fact-based and analytical relationship to publishing content. Facts beat feelings in internal discussions, and there will be more time devoted to focusing on how website visitors experience your messages on a much more personal level than what’s possible today.

Your website will be self-driving just like the cars, but you’ll still decide the direction of your business. The first step is automatic web analytics, and this is possible today.

Originally published at www.canecto.com on July 11, 2017.