5 Ways Artificial Intelligence Will Continue to Shape Marketing
In 2018, artificial intelligence began making its virtues clear to the marketing industry in tangible ways. Want proof? Just check out Lexus’ powerful new commercial scripted by IBM Watson.
So, what does AI have in store in 2019?
The fact that consumers habitually juggle content streams has long been a thorn in marketers’ sides. This year, marketers can expect some relief because AI is great at quickly making sense of convoluted data sets. AI will make it easy for marketers to track consumers’ moves across platforms and channels.
More companies derive insights from AI-driven analytics and look for big changes in media buying strategies. Mindshare Canada’s CEO Devon MacDonald expects “a more confident push into holistic audience planning,” and I agree with him. The days of proprietary, gated platforms that inhibit cross-platform insight are numbered, and we’ll have AI to thank for that.
There’s been lots of buzz around AI’s recent creative accomplishments, but some aren’t convinced that AI has a place in content marketing’s creative brain trust.
Joe Lazauskas, head of content strategy at Contently, is one of them. “Content marketing already has a quality problem,” he scoffed. “Relying on robots to tell stories is the last thing that’s going to solve it.”
I don’t entirely agree. AI artworks at auctions, an AI-edited film trailer and an AI-scribed car commercial may all be more AI hype than reality, but I see real potential for AI as a creative assistant.
Still, 2019 may not be the year creative AI starts delivering interesting industry commentary, profiles and personal stories or well-crafted animated explainers, but that doesn’t mean that AI won’t make itself useful to content markers. AI is great at parsing data. This year, content marketers will start capitalizing on AI’s ability to mine research data for newsworthy insights. That’s content marketing gold.
Marketing strategies easily stray into the woods when human bias distorts data and drives bad insights. For example, advertising is still widely a boys’ club, but should all ad creative be left to male judgment? AI can intervene before bias runs amok.
