Since ChatGPT shook the world just over a year ago, businesses have been looking for ways to leverage generative AI tools to save time, reduce inefficiencies, and increase their bottom line. While some are still wary of artificial intelligence and its ability to replace roles currently occupied by humans, others are excited about its ability to enhance rather than replace the human experience.
Marketing and communications are just one of the sectors affected by the growing popularity of these tools. Here, marketing directors and other communications managers Forbes Communications Council describe how their teams are currently leveraging artificial intelligence and what role they believe AI plays in their particular niche or industry.
1. It is a tool to increase optimization and efficiency
I view AI as another tool in my marketing tool belt. AI has the potential to help us increase optimization and efficiency, but it’s important to remember that the voice and tone of an organization is deeply personal. While AI will not replace a comprehensive skill set, it can be useful when used to collect data, automate processes, and facilitate research when strategically integrated. – Jenny Meassick, Social advisors
2. It saves time on testing and message outreach
AI reduces the time spent on tasks like identifying messages targeted to individuals for outreach and allows those messages to be tested more quickly to see what resonates. This allows teams to achieve better results across all customer and prospect touchpoints. Teams still need a solid data structure and framework, but the ability to offload mundane tasks, accelerate data capture, and share insights is unmatched. – Dayle Room, SnapLogic
3. It’s a “thought starter”
AI is like the marketing calculator. I could do long division, but why would I? The same goes for marketing research and writing an outline of any marketing content you can imagine. I could write the first draft of the plan, but why would I when the AI can do it in seconds? However, you should use the result as a starting point for reflection, not as a final answer. AI is a shortcut, not a memory aid. – Andrew Kokes, HGS
4. It can help businesses stay agile and innovative
I believe CMOs should harness the power of artificial intelligence to help their companies stay agile and build innovative roadmaps based on accessing consumer preferences, monitoring competitors, and identifying gaps and market opportunities. Proactive planning will also ensure businesses stay at the forefront of innovation, meet changing customer demands and maintain a competitive advantage. – Parna Sarkar Basu, Brand and Buzz Consulting, LLC
5. It Improves Productivity for Designers and Copywriters
Contrary to popular belief, AI does not replace writers and designers as much as it improves their productivity. Those who fear it had better get on board quickly or risk being left behind, not only because it shortens content deadlines, but also because it can hone a specific brand’s voice, ensure consistency and maintain value, go-to-market strategy and your corporate reputation. – Matt Naeger, Merkle
6. It allows teams to create hyper-personalized content
AI in marketing allows CMOs to create hyper-personalized content and campaigns to dramatically improve customer experience and engagement. With rapid access to customer data, marketers anticipate and strategize future customer behaviors and see how their communication needs to adapt to influence results. Communications teams experiment by leveraging each other’s strengths. – Seema Kalra, The Right Thing in Marketing Communications
7. It acts as a powerful marketing ally
The power of AI in marketing is truly inspiring. It empowers CMOs to make intelligent decisions, deliver personalized experiences, and communicate more effectively. AI can help make content shine and predict upcoming trends, while chatbots, social media expertise and automated ads keep things running smoothly. It’s like having a powerful ally for marketing adventures, ready to adapt to any challenge! – Antoine Robinson, Novalnet SA
8. He shows you what not to do
An unconventional use of AI is to identify areas to zigzag where others zigzag when creating content on topics that have been covered well by your competitors. Use AI to create the first draft. Then, walk away from anything he suggests. AI aggregates readily available content from other people; therefore, writing material that is decidedly different from what the AI generates can help you stand out. – Nat Lennox, Sieve
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9. It improves the customer experience
CMOs are increasingly harnessing the power of AI to help their teams personalize customer experiences. By leveraging AI to quickly analyze large amounts of customer data and deliver personalized content to users on the right channel at the optimal time, marketers can respond to customer personalization requests easily and with reduced risk, opening up the path to more agile and successful campaigns. – Adriana Gil Miner, Iterable
10. It helps shape go-to-market strategies
CMOs will move beyond generative AI to more advanced AI models that help shape go-to-market strategies. These AI models will use marketing science to develop exercise plans, predict lead and account plans, forecast pipeline coverage across market segments, and use traditional data science methods to identify the ideal customer profile of a company. – Daniel Raskin, MPerativ
11. It can streamline data for more efficient use
The smartest CMOs take the necessary steps to ensure their data (both structured and unstructured) is clean, accurate, unbiased and usable. AI continues to revolutionize content creation and design, but that’s not where the fundamental change in marketing will occur. This will be done with machine learning which will personalize almost everything. Our data is the foundation of machine learning. – Colin Jeffries, Health BrightView
12. It helps teams reuse existing content
I’m seeing clever examples of leveraging AI to help CMOs solve an age-old problem: unique content. You can input existing videos, a handful of blogs, and even transcripts into AI-powered tools to find new ways to reuse them. Human-managed AI content could reduce production time by 90%, saving businesses hundreds of thousands of dollars. CMOs cannot afford to take a wait-and-see approach. – Marija Zivanovic-Smith, IEX
13. It gives you a better understanding of your competitors
We use AI to fill gaps in our competitive intelligence and market landscape knowledge. Extract reviews and customer information and upload them. Then leverage the insights with AI to learn and refine your go-to-market strategy and team tactics. – Roger Figueiredo, #paid
14. It helps focus on human connection
With AI-powered communication tools, marketers find themselves both a challenge and an opportunity. As with other technological advances, the complexity lies in striking a delicate balance. We must use and refine this technology so that it becomes an enabler to free up time and resources, allowing us to focus on what machines cannot replicate: real human connection – Maya Barkay, EverC
15. It bridges the gap between data and action
Marketers are using AI to learn about their customers, bridging the gap between data and action. AI helps analyze historical and real-time data for each customer, thereby leading to personalized and highly relevant marketing campaigns that match customer thoughts and needs. Infusing deep customer understanding at every turn makes campaigns more impactful and meaningful. – Pini Yakuel, Optimove
