ai is disrupting marketing

AI And Digital Marketing

In the world of digital marketing, AI can streamline and optimize marketing initiatives. It can also eliminate the risk of human error. While much of the digital marketing world is still dependent on human ingenuity, an AI program might be able to generate a report using nothing but data. However, to truly connect with your customers, you'll still need the human touch.

Empathy, compassion and storytelling are all attributes that machines can't emulate, at least not yet. At the end of the day, AI is not bound by human limitations. If Moore's Law holds steady for a while, there's no telling what AI will be able to do in the near future.

In the meantime, here are some of the innovations that could affect the industry as AI marketing enters the mainstream.

Content Curation And Generation

At present, content marketing has ballooned into a global industry. It's so prevalent that some refer to it as the only type of marketing.

AI has the potential to both curate and generate content, then place it in front of the right people on the right platforms. This technology is already automating content generation on a basic level, but eventually, AI could generate viable topics for writers, or even develop initial drafts of content based on certain parameters.

On the strategy side, AI has the potential to help marketers map out an end-to-end content strategy. Some marketing tools are already providing this feature. I predict it will also be able to generate comprehensive reporting on content initiatives, with little to no human labor involved.

AI-Enhanced Digital Advertising

I believe artificial intelligence will also continue to change the way businesses advertise. In fact, today's digital advertising strategies would be impossible without a rudimentary form of AI.

Even electronic billboards can be powered by AI-based delivery systems.

These systems operate autonomously, placing the right kinds of ads in front of the right kinds of people based on complex algorithms and big data. This is what's known as "programmatic advertising."

Not too long ago, ad development was mostly a creative endeavor. It still is, but businesses must look beyond creativity if they want their ads to be effective. Today, it's all about targeting and delivering the right message.

Consumers and business to business (B2B) buyers are overwhelmed every day with advertisements. Most of them are irrelevant, so they simply close the ad or move on to their next task. When this happens, advertisers lose money.

With AI, businesses can optimize their return on investment by only placing ads in front of relevant viewers. Ads can be bought automatically, then personalized at scale. Many advertisers are already using this technology.

Behavior Analysis And Predictive Analytics

More and more companies are hiring professionals like data scientists and programmers for their marketing departments. That's because their skills will soon be the backbone of most marketing campaigns.

The internet is like a giant behavioral science laboratory, but there are so many data sets that humans alone can't possibly hope to analyze them all. That's where AI comes in.

Using machine learning and big data analysis, AI is able to provide businesses with deep insights into their customers.

Not only will businesses be able to hyper-personalize interactions, but I imagine they'll also be able to predict future customer behaviors based on the data collected.

Businesses are pouring plenty of money into AI investments. As more AI use-cases occur, we'll discover the most and least effective ways of applying this technology in digital marketing.