Let's take AI Siri-usly!

“Hey Siri, call me a cab.”

“Okay, sure. Hi cab!”

Does this qualify as intelligence? Probably not.

Smart? Meh!

Is it artificial? For sure, yes!

Well, this pretty much sums up the term Artificial Intelligence. It is an umbrella term that simply means machines that learn from human behaviour and intuition to make our lives easier (and sometimes leaving us out of jobs). (The conversation above is an example of speech recognition.)

Let me point out a couple of instances where AI has been used, just to give you a sense of the breadth of possibilities.

1. Click to purchase - and I am not talking about just a mouse click, but a photograph click. With the latest developments in AI, we can click a picture of any product we like and go on a shopping spree with tons of options similar to that product to cater to the “aur dikhao” mindset of the customers.

2. The hit soundtrack by Ambassadors and Wiz Khalifa, ‘Not Easy’ was created using AI. The theme of the song was heartbreak and the AI scanned through a plethora of articles, conversations, newspaper titles, etc, and helped to curate musical elements. AI made it not ‘Not Easy’ ironically.

AI can be touted as the fortune-teller without the crystal ball.

Why should you, as a marketer, pay any heed to AI?

AI, to begin with, sounds like a geeky term that engineering nerds have come up with and you can’t care less to learn more about it. What brands have smartly recognised is its immense potential early. They made it so mainstream that it won’t be a stretch to say that you are living under a rock if you don’t know about it.

We have self-driving cars, for crying out loud!

There is no denying that AI is creating its place in the world of marketing and advertising. And from the looks of it, there’s no stopping that.

Today, we have loads of information available at our disposal owing to the tools that digital marketing has to offer.

But we always find ourselves short on time, energy, or intellectual ability to process and absorb all of this information, despite the fact that it holds insights that can significantly improve our marketing objectives.

Accordingly, marketers and advertising folks are turning to AI for its capacity to improve revenues, decrease expenses, and create an upper hand against the competition.

When it comes to AI for marketing, there are a lot of use cases that advertisers and marketers can bank on.

Content bouquet

AI can articulate fact-based content like financial reports, an upcoming event with particular details, or a market trend. However, AI won’t be able to create opinionated content. Who is not feeling intelligent anymore now? AI, because no opinions, as I just mentioned. One thing AI can seamlessly do is show relevant content to a relevant audience for better engagement. This also includes suggestions based on your shopping interests or movie recommendations on Netflix. Be careful about what you search for next time, AI is watching you.

Voice recognition

I'll be there for you

(When the rain starts to pour)

I'll be there for you (Like I've been there before)

I'll be there for you ('Cause you're there for me too)

Yes, AI could have been the 7th F.R.I.E.N.D, but the world was not ready for it. AI lets you talk into a device. It listens to you, it gives suggestions to you, it is always available, and let’s face it, you find companionship in them. Also, this makes me wonder, how come Siri, Alexa, and Cortana are all women?

You can personalise marketing with AI

I was Window shopping because I don’t use a Mac. I looked up “buy a baseball bat”, I got a three-holed black mask as a suggestion. Well, the algorithm did not quite work, but well tried!

Do you ever wonder how you are being shown ads that resemble your shopping and browsing patterns? It’s all machine learning. This clearly contributes to cross-selling like a boss.

AI and user behaviour

Users leave cookies behind while browsing the web just like they leave carbon footprints in the real world. Too bad the latter can’t be ‘deleted’.

AI helps to track user preferences and interests using these cookies, thereby helping marketers to target their interest groups better.

Some other notable mentions of AI in modern marketing are chatbots, remarketing, lead generation, optimized targeting, and predictive analysis.

Closing thoughts

Consumers are used to being served better, getting suggestions, tips, assistance, and answers while they are making any purchasing decision. And all of this when he/she has not even bought the product/service. In order for brands to keep up with the ever-increasing consumer expectations, AI is the way forward. The more your marketing team ignores using Artificial Intelligence as a part of your marketing strategy, the more susceptible they are to be losing their competitive edge.