How AI Is Reshaping Digital Marketing
Here’s how AI is reshaping marketing, and why professionals should view the technology with appreciation rather than with malice.
Many digital marketers have viewed the ceaseless approach of AI towards their industry with grimace. After all, AI is infamously labeled a “job-killer,” and many hard-working professionals justifiably fear that they could soon be replaced by a robotic counterpart who’s more effective while demanding no salary. Despite all the doom-and-gloom predictions surrounding the rise of AI, however, it’s now indisputable that this impressive technology has had more of a positive impact on the marketing industry than a negative one.
Here’s how AI is reshaping marketing, and why the industry’s tireless professionals should come to view the technology with appreciation rather than with malice.
Fears – and promises – have been overblown
It’s impossible to have a serious discussion about the impact of AI on contemporary society without noting the obvious; fears and promises alike have been overblown when it comes to the way that AI will upend our economy and social lives. This isn’t to say that AI doesn’t have a disruptive impact on the industries embracing it, nor that it’s not immensely useful when professionals leverage it appropriately, but rather that there’s plenty of misinformation and myth-making surrounding the rise of intelligent machines. Marketing professionals who are serious about preserving their futures should avoid the nonsense and stick to the facts.
What we do know for sure about AI and the digital marketing industry is enough to impress anyone; as research from McKinsey makes clear, the value of deep learning is immense, and few are poised to reap as many benefits from the explosive growth in AI technology over the past few years as marketing professionals. McKinsey’s notes from the AI frontier demonstrate that marketing agencies which have embraced the power of deep learning networks with gusto regularly outperform their technically-illiterate competitors. There are few reasons to believe that the slow-but-steady march of the robots is likely to slow down anytime soon, too.
Constellation Research recently put forward data which posits that spending on AI-technologies will likely exceed $100 billion by 2025, for instance. Companies everywhere are diving headfirst into the AI arena because they understand that remaining technically-savvy is the only surefire way of remaining relevant in the contemporary market. Perhaps the most notable consequence of this heavy investing in AI is the impressive rise of the chatbot, which was once an unknown tool that’s since become a ubiquitous part of the marketing industry.
Get ready for even more changes
Today’s chatbots will pale in comparison to some of the more impressive developments that today’s AI endeavors are sure to bring. Users will soon be able to upload images of products that they’re interested in, for instance, so that AI-enhanced image search agencies can recommend similar products that they’re likely to find interesting. Companies like CamFind already offer amateur versions of this service to the public, and similar applications are sure to spring up sooner rather than later when AI is concerned.
Brands like Under Armour and IBM are very well aware of this and have already positioned themselves to become benefit from the forthcoming advancements in AI technology. Clever marketing agents working for these companies have already teamed up and announced that they’ll soon be able to offer a personalized AI assistant who can recommend nutritional supplements and sports gear that could supercharge your workout. Expect this kind of personalized-approach to marketing to become the norm across the industry in the near-future, especially as AI allows even the smallest marketing agencies to vacuum up huge sums of valuable consumer data.
Pay-per-click advertising, too, will soon be radically transformed by the introduction of AI into the marketplace. Google and Facebook already enjoy a wide-reaching monopoly over the U.S. digital advertising market, and these companies are already beginning to leverage the power of AI to further entrench themselves in the advertising industry. Large scale PPC campaigns will soon change the way we view copywriting and audience targeting, especially as some of today’s largest companies move to make use of their tremendous resources and invest heavily in AI spending.
Content marketing could be completely remade
Marketing professionals may even soon find themselves making use of AI-generated content, something that was dismissed just a few years ago as being too imaginative to actually work. Modern AI services can now churn out content at an unprecedented pace, with the Associated Press now making use of “robot journalist” who can write their own stories. It’s becoming increasingly clear that content marketing as we know it will be completely upended by AI, with major ad campaigns of the future being pitched by AI programs and human employees alike.
Don’t expect all of these changings to take place all at once; like any technology, AI will advance in fits and starts. It’s increasingly clear that AI’s foraying into the modern marketplace isn’t going to end anytime soon, however, and those marketing professionals who have come to fear the machines should consider enlisting their support instead.