The Missing Link in Gen AI Marketing: Understanding Your Customers

The small screen displays a company logo in red artwork, white copy, and a blue background. It is suddenly replaced by the image of a person in their late 50s in a gray suit. ?A video starts to roll: ?

?“Welcome to Icaro Airlines, where we proudly embrace Generative AI to optimize every aspect of our business. We monitor in real-time thousands of conversations between pilots and flight control, using this to optimize route efficiency and empower maintenance teams on the ground. Our teams can now easily simulate different cabin designs to maximize every inch, carrying more with less. We ingest data from different channels to create ultra-personalized marketing messages at scale, reinforcing how we are the best option to fly, no matter the scenario. And that’s just the start. Thanks for choosing Icaro.” ???

Even if we consider the only logical explanation for the presentation above (Icaro is a cargo, not passengers’ company, and the message targets investors, not clients), no executive in their right mind would approve such a self-centric message, disconnected from clients’ needs. But this is how many Gen AI conversations are going. ?

Because I’m a marketer, I’ve been targeted to attend several “What Gen AI Means for Marketing” events from big tech giants and emerging startups. In general, there are two takeaways:?

• It’s early days; nobody knows too much. Create an AI committee to form your strategy?
• Imagine how you can drive efficiencies in how?you?do things (X, Y, Z scenarios) ?

I agree with this, and I welcome the 2 points above. That said, something is missing.

In my article Perestroika 2.0, I wrote about a “small detail” missing from the privacy and cookie apocalypse discussions in the marketing industry:?the consumer. And the same is happening here. Whether you are in B2B or B2C, understanding how the people consuming the new technology change their behavior and decision-making process remains the most important object of study for brands, agencies, and tech platforms.?

For example, I often hear, “What should I change in my content strategy to appear in GenAI chat services.” It’s a good question, one we need to ask. But it can also be a symptom of how much these days we put our content strategy in SEO autopilot and forget to ask, “How can my content be more helpful to my clients”?? Knowing their pain points, competing options, and unanswered questions should be a top priority. Asking questions like, "How can my clients benefit from AI to get what they are looking for? How does that change their decision journey?"? should inform us of our next steps. Some lead platforms are starting to share valuable insights about user behavior, and you should listen to their perspectives. On top of that, having intentional audience intelligence efforts and well-tuned listening channels, always learning customer behavior, is as important as establishing internal committees to discuss how internal groups will use AI.?

Satya Nadella has been saying that the AI revolution is a new wave that can change how people interact with technology. The irony is that, in order to be ready for what’s coming, we need to go back to the basics and put our clients and all consumers at the center of our strategy. Observing how they uncover new usage scenarios in their daily lives and concentrating on serving their needs is probably the most exciting and important thing we can do. ?

The views and opinions expressed in this article are my own and do not necessarily reflect the official position of my employer.

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