There’s a whole host of misinformation and uncertainty when it comes to artificial intelligence (AI). From the notion that ‘the robots are taking over’ to confusion about what AI actually is. There’s a clear need to demystify this smart technology. 

What many people don’t realise is that AI is already embedded in our daily lives. It’s often without us realising. From the service chatbots we chat to online, to the predictive text option on our smart devices. AI is all around us, everywhere.

For businesses, using AI to automate workflows and streamline processes has become mainstream. In fact, AI is now heavily embedded in marketing. From data analytics to EDM distribution, it’s helping all functions of digital. And now, AI is involved in almost every aspect of marketing. 

AI is increasingly entering into the public sphere. Tools such as DALL·E Mini spark conversation over the life-like AI-generated creations. Now, it’s understandable that marketers are becoming nervous about their future roles. How much can this technology really replace?

But the reality is that AI isn’t here to steal people’s jobs. It’s simply a helpful tool for us to conveniently and efficiently sort enormous amounts of data. At the end of the day, AI needs to be given instructions and training to provide better decision support to marketers. This is why AI is the help that small marketing teams have long been crying out for. As well as this, savvy marketers would do well to use AI more.

AI is more than just analysis

Validating its role in the future of the business ecosystem, local investment in AI systems is set to grow $3.6 billion in 2025. However, despite this opportunity for growth, business leaders and marketers are currently failing to use AI to its full potential. 

For marketers, one of the biggest and most important parts of the job is creating personalised experiences. We are moving into a world where consumers increasingly expect personalised experiences from the companies they interact with. Hyper-personalisation will be the secret weapon setting businesses apart from competitors. All thanks to the support of AI.

In the current landscape, businesses can’t afford to hire hundreds of employees to personally reach and engage with existing and prospective customers, while consistently delivering an incredibly high standard of service to drive customer loyalty. This is where AI can be used as a tool, not a takeover mechanism. 

Take Metigy as an example. It uses AI to take the guesswork out of social media and digital marketing strategy. The technology can be used to leverage data-based insights to drive unique and relevant engagement. AI is pertinent to each and every customer. It gives marketing teams more time back in the diary to focus on creative and strategic work. 

In this way, AI is a tool that can better direct and focus marketing efforts. It does the searching and looking for patterns, pulling through the insights in real time. Ultimately, it’ll be the marketing team that actions those insights for future success to help ladder up to broader business objectives. 

Taking the stress out of marketing decisions

Building on AI’s use case in creating a greater personalisation experience for customers, AI can be leveraged to help marketers make informed decisions, based on patterns of behaviour. Currently, data analysts and researchers can take large amounts of data and draw insights within a couple of months. Due to this time frame, it often loses relevance. But, with AI, users can achieve the same outcomes in a matter of hours. 

By minimising the time spent crunching data, there’s greater capacity to build creative insights. It frees up time to spend on macro problems while reducing pain points. These can be  knowing who to target, how best to reach them and when is the best time to post. 

The outcome of AI use is timely decisions guided by data-led insights. Being able to access customer insight and assess the tangible outcomes of your choices means better informed future campaigns. This creates greater content aligned to your customers. 

Driving business growth 

As AI solutions continue to advance, we will no doubt continue to see growth in how it is leveraged. From greater personalisation to better data analysis solutions. AI enables a greater and more exciting future for marketers. 

Alongside its ability to crunch data at speed when used to its best ability, AI can help drive business growth by executing a focused marketing plan informed by your guidelines and input.

Despite its ability to create, build and support, without human touch AI is not much but a data processing tool. It is unable to create the way we do, implement the way we do or strategise the way we do. 

For now anyway, AI is friend and not foe. 

Johnson Lin, CTO & Co-founder, Metigy.