3 Ways Artificial Intelligence Can Boost Your Marketing

 As artificial intelligence becomes a reality, thought leaders like Stephen Hawking and Elon Musk have said we should fear for our survival. Their concerns are credible. AI is already replacing us in all sorts of areas. Smart machines are doing dangerous jobs in industries like mining. On top of that, AI is already improving modern medicine by using machine learning to detect dementia. Could robots replace marketers?

At SAP, we see AI as an opportunity for humanity’s improvement rather than an enabler of our irrelevance. By doing these three things as we develop smart software, our marketing will thrive in the age of AI.

Automate the unimportant stuff

Machines have been replacing jobs for centuries. In fact, the term “technological unemployment” predates World War Two. What we often forget is that machines create newer, more meaningful jobs in the process. When the printing press replaced the town crier, it created the newsagent. When the internet removed the need for newsagents, it created the systems administrator.

AI is only an extension of this co-evolution. In fact, prescriptive AI are tools that can “make” decisions for us based on in-built rules and their own understanding. Marketing executives can save time by deploying prescriptive AI to make small decisions for them. These decisions can be as simple as what keywords to use when optimising content for search engines. By saving time for more advanced decisions, marketing executives can use AI to make their own work more meaningful.

Focus on conversational AI

Our ability to talk to computers is still relatively recent, but it has fundamentally changed the way we treat technology. Today, we use intelligent interfaces to satisfy our daily demands. We ask our phones to order pizza and plan our trips, all while treating these unfeeling assistants as though they’re human.

This humanised interaction is laying the foundation for a new digital experience in marketing. Consumers are already interacting with organisations entirely through AI, creating connections that once required around-the-clock staff. By offering consumers branded AI assistants, as well as optimising online content for voice-activated search, marketers can take advantage of this ongoing development to reach time-strapped customers.

 One such technology is SAP CoPilot, which offers SAP customers digital assistant services.

Reinvent the marketing cycle

Consider the later stages of the marketing cycle. Distribution, advertising, and so on. When a consumer can just say “Alexa, we need more milk,” what’s the point of building interest in brands? For the future, we need to focus on feeding a preference for our products into AI assistants. We can’t trust consumers will say “Alexa, order 2 litres of Brand X Milk”.

Still see AI as an enemy instead of an ally? Put your mind at ease by reading more about the latest developments in machine learning.