How Businesses Can Use AI Tools to Gain a Competitive Edge in Digital Marketing

Artificial intelligence (AI) has become such a fixture in everyone’s daily activities that many people are unaware of how often they are actually interacting with it. The Pew Research Center surveyed to measure their awareness of the presence of AI technology in their day-to-day lives. From GPS traffic updates, fitness watches, banking, and personalized online shopping experiences, 30% of Americans were considered to have a high level of awareness, 38% had a medium level, and 31% were not as conscious of just how much they interact with AI on a daily basis.The AI-powered Chat Generative Pre-Trained Transformer (ChatGPT), a next-generation natural language processing tool launched in November 2022, has been promoted as a time- and labor-saving device for writing and research from school papers to multimedia applications. It is also demonstrating its usefulness in digital marketing. But could AI simply replace people and take control of the digital marketing profession? Derek Chew, CEO of Fullmoon Digital, explains that AI is a powerful tool — but only truly effective when combined with human expertise.

Read More about AiThority Interview: AiThority Interview with Jim Kaskade, Chief Executive Officer at Conversica

Chew clarifies, “The performance of AI tools relies on access to large sets of data to learn from. The current evolution of AI can perform writing and optimizing tasks well if it has sufficient, targeted data and is prompted accurately. In that way, marketers can save time by employing AI effectively. But AI lacks the big-picture understanding, emotional intelligence, and insights to direct the process on its own.”

Even before the launch of ChatGPT, AI has been increasingly adopted to assist with digital marketing tasks. AI and machine learning can personalize websites, analyze and predict customer behavior to segment communications, deliver personalized content, and help optimize advertising campaigns.

AI is also used to help generate web content, although its ability to do that effectively is limited by access to existing, relevant data on the subject. This makes it more effective for some topics than for others. Google’s latest algorithm, the Helpful Content Update, is designed to reward human-generated content that delivers valuable and useful information.

The long-term use of AI in digital marketing depends on improvements in writing code, mimicking human speech, optimizing advertising tasks, streamlining customer service functions, and building websites. The future-world potential of AI is wide open. Experts imagine everything from data-controlled serfdom to an idealized society where AI can supercharge health and fitness as well as reduce pollution. And with machines taking care of most of the work, people may even enjoy a universal basic wage, enabling them to realize their full human potential.

In the meantime, AI is a real economic force with a viable role as a digital marketing tool. Marketers who ignore AI are missing out on time-saving data analysis, like managing informational relationships, measuring results, and using statistical models in predicting outcomes. Those who rely too heavily on AI run the risk of plagiarism, inaccuracies, and content that lacks emotional intelligence.

AiThority Interview Insights: AiThority Interview with Ramsey Masri, Chief Executive Officer at Ceres Imaging

AI systems are skilled at modeling natural speech and logistical analysis but are entirely incapable of creativity, subjective thinking, or conscious thought. Without human direction and adjustment, the AI output lacks insight, humor, and structural diversity — the elements that inspire the emotional reactions that move people to engage and act.

“AI is a time-saving tool but not a replacement for skill and experience. There is buzz that ChatGPT will replace copywriters, but companies that relegate content creation and ad generation to AI will fall behind. The output is intelligent but not emotional; emotions, not just logic, fuel human decisions. Just because you CAN automate doesn’t mean you SHOULD,” says Chew.

A powerful example is brand identity, which is a projection of the core values of a business and comes across as the company’s personality. It is essential to developing loyalty in today’s marketplace.

 Latest AiThority Interview Insights : AiThority Interview with Itamar Kandel, Chief Executive Officer at Vista.ai

 [To share your insights with us, please write to sghosh@martechseries.com]