How to embed AI into your B2B marketing team

Whether artificial intelligence scares you, excites you, or both, it's time to embed it in your team.

In October 2023 I asked my B2B marketing connections how they were using AI. Here are the results.

As you can see, most were still 'dabbling and experimenting'. For most marketers, 2023 was probably a year of discovery and experimentation. Looking forward, I believe 2024 will be more about embedding AI into marketing teams. But how? I'll explore that in this article.

But before we get going, I better make a confession. I'm not an expert in AI.

So why am I writing about it? Well in 2023 I organised a conference about AI in the training sector. I brought together experts to speak about AI. And I experimented with AI tools to market the event. For this article, I also asked marketing connections how they were using AI. This has all taught me about the importance and potential of AI for B2B marketers.

In this article, I'll discuss how to embed AI in your marketing team.

Start by defining what you mean by AI

Agree what you mean when you say AI. This brief overview may help you discuss AI with your team.

Forbes describes AI as “a branch of computer science dealing with the simulation of intelligent behaviour in computers".

Salesforce defines AI as "the concept of having machines perform tasks like reasoning, planning, learning, and understanding language".

It's also been described as a constellation of technologies that have come together. AI is essentially a set of tools that solve problems. That includes 'generative AI' which produces text, pictures and video, and 'diagnostic AI' which analyses data using algorithms.

At present, there's nothing sentient in AI technologies.

AI doesn’t have attributions such as comprehension or contextual understanding.

It's like a competent intern. You can ask it to perform certain tasks but you need to be mindful of its lack of understanding of what you’re trying to do.

AI has its roots going back 2,500 years to a Greek mathematician, Euclid, who wrote an algorithm on papyrus (see below).

Others attribute the birth of AI to a paper written by the English mathematician Alan Turing in 1950.

More recent milestones such as cloud computing and advanced computer chips have provided the infrastructure for the growth of the AI services we see today.

AI hit the mainstream when ChatGPT was released on November 30, 2022. It reached a million users within five days and 100 million within two months!

But you've been using AI for longer than that. Lots of our devices and web services have used AI technologies for many years. If you’re talking to Siri or using Amazon recommendations, you’re using AI.

Mitigate the risks of using AI in B2B Marketing

There are many challenges and misconceptions around using AI in marketing. So let's address some first.

AI copy

Using AI for copywriting has rightly come in for a lot of stick from the likes of Dave Harland. Tread very carefully with AI copy. It tends to be bland, uninspiring and lacking in personality. I prefer to use chatbots to suggest bullet points and frameworks for subjects.

Accuracy

OpenAI acknowledges that ChatGPT ‘sometimes writes plausible-sounding but incorrect or nonsensical answers’. This behaviour is common for large language models, and is sometimes called 'hallucination'. Use chatbots for research but don't expect originality, and check facts diligently.

Ethical concerns

A 2018 study with NBA players showed that emotional analysis technology assigned more negative emotions to black men’s faces than white men’s faces. That's obviously unacceptable. Again, tread cautiously as there's bias in many chatbots' output.

IP issues

Marketers I spoke to for this article in professional services were less likely to adopt some Generative AI tools, especially image generation. I've seen tests where different AI tools generated an image using the same text. The results looked similar. So what was the source? Who owns it? And what happens when they find out?

Deep fakes

This is highlighted by the story about Tom Hanks apparently appearing in an advert which was in fact an AI fake. Honesty and integrity are going to be a huge part of using AI, so work with AI partners that you trust.

Create the right environment and agree on goals

Here are some things you can do to create the right environment for using AI in marketing:

• Understand and mitigate the risks
• Agree on goals - what do you want to achieve?
• Start cautiously with some pilot projects
• Experiment with different tools for different tasks.
• Be purposeful by identifying efficiencies
• Build skills and find the right tools for your business
• Don’t rely on AI alone, it needs human intervention
• Communicate and share good results

Choose tools purposefully

Chatbots

In addition to ChatGPT, there's now a plethora of chatbots to help you with all manner of tasks, including Google Bard, Microsoft’s AI-powered Bing, and Anthropic’s Claude 2?

Asking questions in the right way will get you better results. For example, explain the scenario - who are you and why are you asking the question? You can also give some specific guidance on what you want. Give your chatbot sufficient information to make the result good for you.

Video creators

I've also tried Runway to create mini videos. Here's a still from a video I created using the prompt 'Create a video of a doctor using VR in training.'

Meetings notes

Read.AI is a meeting transcription tool that also provides notes with action points. But be careful about privacy issues. Ensure everyone in a meeting knows they're being recorded and transcribed - and are ok with it.

Automated video clips

Are you running a webinar and want some clips from the recording? Try Opus - this clever tool transcribes the video, spots some highlights, and provides some clips along with funky captions.

Image creators

Dall.E, Midjourney and Adobe Firefly are leading image creators, but Bard and Bing have their own as well.

I used Dall.E and paid $15 plus tax, to create some images. I asked it to create an image of two men recording a podcast, both wearing glasses using a large microphone. I got a few options which I thought were a bit hit-and-miss. But these are bound to get better over time.

AI avatars and video

I can see AI avatars becoming a much-used tool in B2B marketing. I've used Synthesia. Their AI avatars are a thing of wonder. You write the script and choose an avatar, a voice, and even a language.

And you get a highly polished video without cameras, lighting or sound issues, and at a fraction of the cost of traditionally shot videos. Plus they're really easy to change if you want to choose a different avatar or tweak the script. Here's an example of the video I created for a conference.

How will you use AI?

As you use these tools, make sure you share the results with colleagues to build expertise internally.

Of course, I've barely touched the surface here. Who knows how many more AI tools there'll be for marketers in 2024 and beyond?

I think it's good to embrace AI cautiously. Recognise its potential, challenges and risks. Experiment purposefully and regularly. Ask which tasks are taking too much time, and could an AI application make it quicker and easier to complete?

AI presents another exciting time for B2B marketers. It's time to get stuck in.