Artificial intelligence is likely to transform digital marketing as much as digital marketing transformed the business world. In Brandon's latest blog, we present several predictions from marketers.
Researchers from the Higher School of Economics predict that by 2025, AI will leave a significant portion of marketers unemployed. For those who remain in the profession, working with artificial intelligence will become a mandatory skill.
HubSpot expects AI to reshape the industry so profoundly that AI-based services will account for 99% of marketing tasks.
Unbounce refers to artificial intelligence as the "great equalizer," enabling small businesses to make their marketing as effective as large corporations.
In this article, we will explore the following applications of AI:
Artificial intelligence is the ability of computer programs to learn, make decisions, and perform tasks typically associated with human intelligence. AI technologies are divided into four key areas: machine learning, natural language processing, computer vision, and robotics.
There are two types of AI: weak AI and strong AI.
Weak AI has been around for a long time. It is designed to solve a limited range of tasks, such as processing images, chatting with users, or predicting customer preferences. Weak AI performs tasks better and faster than humans and continually improves, but it cannot learn entirely new concepts.
Strong AI remains a future possibility. This type of AI can make decisions in situations it was not specifically programmed for.
Weak AI has already been widely used in marketing. According to Gartner, from 2015 to 2019, the share of companies using AI increased by 270%. Among the companies surveyed by Gartner’s CIOs, 37% had implemented AI in some form.
AI addresses two primary marketing challenges:
Reducing costs, such as replacing human customer support agents with AI-powered chatbots
Increasing efficiency, by analyzing vast amounts of data and generating hypotheses faster and more accurately than humans
For example, The Washington Post has been using the Heliograf bot since 2016 to quickly gather and publish news. Initially designed to cover the Olympic Games, Heliograf worked alongside journalists who prepared templates, and the AI filled them with real-time data. The system later expanded to cover templated news and even analytical articles.
Another example is Alibaba Group, which replaced copywriters with AI. Developers created a program that can generate 20,000 lines of text per second by analyzing over a million human-written texts. Vendors on platforms like Taobao, Tmall, Mei.com, and 1688.com can simply enter a product page link and choose a narrative style, and AI generates a product description. Currently, this system works only in Chinese.
One of the biggest recent innovations is Google Performance Max, an AI-driven campaign management system that automates ads across all Google platforms. Users only need to provide materials, define their target audience, and make a few adjustments. The AI then creates ad creatives, selects the most effective versions, optimizes the budget, and refines targeting.
What’s Next?
Both large and small companies can integrate AI into their marketing strategies. Large companies often develop proprietary AI solutions, while small teams rely on no-code AI services.
Although AI is rapidly transforming marketing, it is unlikely to replace humans entirely.
"We should view AI as a tool for testing hypotheses and maximizing the return on marketing investments," says Noel Paasch, Creative Director at Google Unskippable Labs.