Is ChatGPT nemesis of marketing?

We are witnessing an unprecedented explosion of generative AI, the domain of which is not only data analysis but also content generation of quality achievable only to humans. AI is able to communicate with humans using their natural language to generate images (Dall-e), and provide nuanced answers to complex and abstract questions from wide range of knowledge (ChatGPT).

These new technologies have appeared almost suddenly and contrary to previous expectations. There was widespread consensus that automation would concern primarily simple tasks performed by unskilled workers, and creative work would still be the domain of humans for a long time. Meanwhile, the explosion of generative artificial intelligence concerns areas that until now required creative, highly qualified employees such as translators, analysts, copywriters and even programmers.

Many marketers react to these new technologies with a mixture of fascination and fear. In my opinion, marketers are rightly afraid of ChatBots (like ChatGPT), but they are doing it for the wrong reasons. Most are worried that it will replace them, or hope it will help in creation of marketing content. Meanwhile, I am convinced that the revolution will happen on the customers side who will be asking questions directly to the bot instead looking for marketing or sales support content. Moreover, they will make purchasing decisions based on the reponses.

How will ChatGTP change our habits?

Let us take such a trivial thing as an apple pie recipe. Today the first and easiest step to take - before turning to other, perhaps more trusted sources, such as a phone call to a friend or a cookbook on the shelf - is to type in a Google search, ie. to "google it". Why so? Because it is trivially simple, requires a minimum of effort and the phone with browser is always at hand.

While typing a keyword into a search engine is almost instinctive for us, using the search results is not so trivially easy. Although Google is increasingly displaying the so-called zero click results (i.e. a compilation of content that is supposed to answer the query directly in the search results), it still requires either the evaluation of the results or the compilation of information from multiple sources. In the case of our apple pie, it may mean selection recipe page from thousands of search results, or browsing through a number of them to form an opinion of what a good apple pie recipe looks like.

I would argue that asking a ChatBot for a recipe is much easier than googling and the response obtained will be good enough in many cases. Why? This is the strength of ChatGPT technology: extracting knowledge from a vast body of information and summarizing it using natural language. As history teaches us, the ease of use is the most important factor for the mass adoption of technology.

ChatGPT can hugely impact marketing

The scenario of "chatting" an apple pie recipe may seem innocent, but from the point of view of marketing it is the revolution of the magnitude similar to one that took place around a quarter of a century ago, when the proliferation of the Internet, democratized publishing and provided universal access to it via search engines. It have enabled brands to publish information and reach their audience directly, bypassing the media, which until now was the only real channel to reach potential customers. It also enabled the recipients to find the information they needed within seconds.

Exactly this mechanism is used by marketing tactics such as inbound marketing and content marketing. More importantly, building the reputation of the content source are essential for all of them. It's a simple trust-building mechanism: if a given brand provides competent and trustworthy, we believe that it will be equally competent and trustworthy in the other areas. Especially in B2B marketing, creating content and publishing it on the Internet is an extremely effective technique, as it allows you to focus on a very narrow thematic niche and explore in-depth very specific needs of the small but important audience - something that is impossible to achieve by traditional mass media. The fact that these are the dominant marketing tactics in B2B today is great evidence how effective this model is.

All this can change with introduction of AI. Buyers will no longer have to dig through the entire ocean of information (and directly interact with marketing content). If they can rely on the answers generated by the bot, the current model will be broken. On several levels:

• Source attribution – ChatGPT does not attribute sources of information, its answers are simply extracts of knowledge that are not attributed to any source, author or brand. Therefore it does not allow build brand trust.
• Content subscription - as the replies are not associated with anyone, the recipient has no reasons or mechanisms to subscribe their favorite content source. This makes it impossible to build an audience – the basis for content marketing.
• Content visibility – Unlike Google, which constantly indexes new Internet resources, ChatGPT is a model trained on a closed data set. New information published does not automatically adds up to the "field of knowledge" of the ChatBot. It requires to be re-trained (OpenAI says, the latest data used is from 2021; try asking ChatGPT about the World Cup in Qatar). Of course, most likely the training interval will be shortened but responses will be based on statistical analysis. It may mean (NOTE: these are only my speculations!) a single publication, no matter how valuable may have little or even no impact on the chatbot's responses because it will be statistically insignificant.

It is therefore highly probable that ChatBots will deprive marketers opportunity to directly influence buyers through marketing or sales support content. In the case of the apple pie recipe producers of organic apples will loose an opportunity to reach consumers with their content to build brand's trust. For culinary bloggers it will be a disaster!

ChatGPT will impact the B2B purchasing process, too

You may be irritated that I'm building my argument on apple pie example. How does this relate to B2B marketing?! After all, no one in their right mind will rely solely on ChatBot to take fateful business information!

Of course not!

But…

Let's not forget ChatGPT is still the experimental version of ChatBot. I think that without much controversy we can safely assume that the scope of knowledge and the quality of responses will only keep improving. We can only argue how quickly.

It should also be remembered that many B2B purchasing decisions are routine and low-risk. The convenience and speed of obtaining information are often more important than its absolute correctness. The process of selecting paper brand for your office is probably not a matter of life and death for the person who makes this decision, much less for the company, however it is a matter of survival for the paper manufacturer. The time and effort to make the optimal paper decision is probably better used to solve more significant problems.

Even if it is difficult to imagine anyone would rely solely on ChatBot's answers for important business purchases, I still believe that bot could easily influence them. I can imagine at least two scenarios:

• Impact on the research process - even if ones don not ask ChatGPT a question about the purchase, it is possible that he will use it for supporting questions, e.g.: "What book / podcast / conference is the best source about X?”, “What are the most important questions to answer before buying X?” etc. All these questions only indirectly relate to the product or service X, but they will undoubtedly affect the research results and thus the final decision.
• Impact on buying committee – B2B purchases often involve appointment of the so-called purchasing committee, i.e. a team of people who should come to a consensus about the purchase of a product or service. But - let's be realistic - not the entire purchasing committee is emotionally involved in making the purchase and pushing for it. Many committee members play purely opinionating role, e.g. they are there to make sure the purchase will not cause problems in the area of their responsibility. I can perfectly imagine a situation when a committee members seek to "optimize" their involvement by short cutting to asking bot a question: "Can the purchase of product X involve risk in the area for which I am responsible." If the answer indicates such risks (even if not correctly!), then such a person may block a purchase that is not significant from their point of view anyway.

Will marketers share the fate of sales?

I see striking resemblance of this situation to impact Internet adoption had on sales. The fact that buyers started researching purchases on their own created a huge demand for content. It was the cause of the explosion of marketing content and the dizzying career of the content-based tactics (inbound marketing, content marketing, demand generation, sales support content, etc.).

A well known Gartner study from 2019 illustrates the scale of this change. The time spent interacting with sellers has shrunk to about 17% of the entire purchasing process (note: this includes all potential suppliers - so a fraction of that time per one!). The vast majority of this time buyers allocate to various types of research. As a result, sales have lost the ability to maintain a monopoly on information to get potential buyers to meet. Buyers simply have vanished from their radar and stopped showing up to ask them questions.

I am convinced that a similar fate awaits marketers. Large part of the research time B2B marketers are currently able to influence directly with their content (highlighted in yellow in the chart) will disappear from their radar. Buyers will reallocate part of this time which is now devoted to extracting knowledge out of content (including marketing information) to ChatBots queries. Please note extracting knowledge from a large amount of information, is the strongest point of ChatGPT - therefore I consider it an almost certain scenario.

How big shift will it be? Today we can only speculate. However many B2B marketers, accustomed to publishing eBooks, creating landing pages, generating leads using gated content or answering the most frequently asked questions during webinars, will be surprised that it all suddenly stopped working - just like their sales colleagues were surprised why their phones went silent a decade or two ago.

How to prepare for the paradigm shift?

Honestly, I don't have a ready-made answers, but I think it's worth remembering the historical analogies related to the paradigm shifts of communication caused by new, disruptive technologies:

• Radio have not replaced the press - sure, the press lost its status as a news medium in favor of faster radio, but (due to its extensiveness) it better suited for publishing extensive commentaries or analyses.
• Television has not completely replaced the radio, but it has changed its role - the radio has disappeared from the living rooms where TV is king, but often the radio is an inseparable travel companion.
• The Internet did not kill television, but changed its function - Television still dominates when it comes to live broadcasting (e.g. sports) or experiencing emotions together (e.g. live shows), but it was the Internet that won the war for movies and series.
• Content marketing and sales support content did not make all salesperson to disappear but those who remained took on the role of competent advisors and consultants.

I think something similar will happen this time, as well. AI may dominate certain communication scenarios (just as Google dominated the search for information). Although it will not eliminate other forms it will – similarly to the historical examples mentioned – limit their application to narrower but better suited scenarios.

ChatGPT is still in its experimental phase, not a finished product, and much depends on what business model will be developed by OpenAI and its future competitors. Will it be possible to view or buy statistics of questions asked (similarly to Google Keyword Tool)? Will it be possible to purchase "branded responses"? Will there be any other mechanisms available to marketers, at all? We don't know that.

However, if I were to predict which marketing content will lose its importance and its role will be taken over by responses generated by AI, and which have a chance to resist this trend, my picks are as follows:

High threat from AI

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) – If your content strategy is based on answering the most frequently asked questions on a relatively popular topic that has hundreds or thousands of sources on the Internet, then you are in deep trouble. If you think that the main task of content in your marketing strategy is to provide the best answer to a specific given question on the broad knowledge pool, then be aware that ChatGPT was specifically created excel in this. Your odds of winning this race may be slim. As this is especially true for the analysis of extensive content, marketing of legal and tax services which is often based on translating the impact of regulations or applying the law (can any lawyer or tax advisor be able to analyze ALL legal acts?!) seems to me a natural candidate to be endangered. There are many more industries like this. Perhaps there is hope for the ultra-narrow in-depth topics, however I would not bet my money future bots will not cover even such niche to content.

Low threat from AI

Conferences and communities - social interaction is so far difficult to be replace by technology because of its emotional aspect. In case of conventions and communities meetings it is equally important who do you listed to who do you meet and what is the meeting content. Therefore, in my opinion, recurring conferences and meetings which are meant to nurture community build around them and playing on the emotion of belonging are not endangered (look at example from our industry like Content Marketing World by Content Marketing Institute). If, on the other hand, your events are organized ad-hoc, focuses exclusively on the business topic (paradoxically!) but do not build engagement ... then I am not sure about them.

Content marketing – similarly content marketing (understood as building trust in the author / source using long term subscription) which have a certain emotional aspect, a relationship with the author, has a better chance of persevering than classic inbound marketing and sales support content where the emotional connection with the author is negligible (be sure to read: Don't confuse "Content Marketing" with "Sale enablement content"). It is more difficult to be replaced by artificial intelligence than a content which is merely a dry synthesis of information needed to make a decision. Podcasts in particular seem to me to be a great tool for building such a personal relationship.

Tools, simulators, calculators, visualizations, videos - All kinds of content that allow you to experience, experiment, analyze, compare and visualize different versions and variants, ie. everything that is not easy to present with such a general and text tool as ChatGPT - I think it is safe for now.

New forms of content?

Perhaps – in reaction to the inaccuracies and limitations of chat-bots in answering specific questions – the new trend in content marketing will be “corrections”? Perhaps this will create demand and the need to create content like: "10 incorrect ChatGPT answers on topic X"?

ChatGPT is a revolution comparable to introduction of the Internet

Owing to Internet, we have almost unlimited access to information. This has led to a revolution in the way we find and consume it. This also applies to information we use to make purchasing and business decisions. It was the basis of redefinition of what the function of marketing content is; this is why the dominant tactics in B2B (and not only) today are inbound and content marketing.

Generative AI - on the verge of the explosion we are in right now - will give us unlimited access not only to information but also to the knowledge that is contained in the information. We will no longer be forced to tedious, self-extraction - AI can do it for us. I am convinced that it will heavily impact the way buyers research purchasing decisions and, consequently, will also change the face of marketing (similarly to the Internet revolution of 25 years ago).

I am aware, forecasting is difficult, especially when it comes to the future, but regardless if I'm right or wrong - as in case of any paradigm shift - those who deny change will become irrelevant. The most important thing is to stay open minded, curious and keep experimenting. Therefore - I urge you - create an account with ChatGPT today and try to ask the bot questions that your customers ask. I promise - you will be surprised.

If you would like more in-depth guide how to react to this change, I recommend "Experiences: The 7th Era of Marketing" book by Robert Rose and ?? Carla Johnson. It will help you transform your content to be much more than merely answer to question you can ask ChatGPT.

* * *

This article was NOT created but ChatGPT. It is the translation of the article originally published on my blog: b2b-marketing.pl. Follow it for more content about B2B marketing in Polish language.