The "Promise" of AI not so promising.

"Hi this is Alice and I'm here to tell you about the latest benefits from Medicare.........." it's at this point I say "Alice" increasing ly louder as "Alice" drones on extolling all the wonderful new benefits available to my dad. Alice does not respond and asking her to take him off their list was not in Alices programming apparently.

This was not my first interaction with AI and the promise gone wrong. I have gotten MANY telemarketing calls to tell me how they can get my website a #1 ranking on Google making my business thousands of dollars.

Working as a digital marketer and more importantly in consumer and B2B data this is a in my face example of how important data is and more importantly keeping it updated being key to making it work. Or is it? You sse I answered my dad's phone because he lie in a hospital bed, his kidneys shutting down and in the last moments of life. Even the best data wouldn't be THAT up to date. Also they had no way of knowing how woefully inadequate Medicare benefits are to someone like him.

Moments later the phone rings again......this time "Dennis" is calling with the same AI message. He does not respond either after I yell at him as many times. I contemplate throwing my dad's phone across the room and then it hits me......this is a learning moment.

Marketers need to tread lightly with AI because even AI can seem intrusive and do more harm than good if it is unresponsive or slow to respond. Add to that if the data you are using is out of date or inaccurate. In my case the data is aged for sure, and their timing couldn't be helped I understand. Yet it still made my experience with their companies and AI leave a bad impression. This is of course an extreme case but it underlines just some of the many things that can go wrong and how it could affect your campaigns and the perception consumers have of your company.

At a time when the industry is being hit with new compliance and privacy laws to end just such intrusions. If we can't get this right with AI imagine how much worse it could make things for the industry. While cookies may or may not be going anywhere, it certainly will be a cat and mouse game much like the days or heat mapping mouse movement, and honeypots to verify real from fake web traffic.

AI for intent could perhaps work, again depending on the age of the data. Several companies are testing real time and in some cases this may work. AI behind the scenes shows promise as well as a guide or way to make the analytics side of things easier. But for client facing tasks it is best left to the humans who can discern things when needed and make decisions based on customer cues.

As always marketing will always be about A/B testing as consumers are a fickle bunch and their minds and tastes change frequently. But using data and analytics is still the best way to personalize and make sure you get the best ROI.

Thoughts?