AI is Taking Over Marketing, Or is it?

As of late, marketers are only talking about AI and ML. These two hot topics have taken over the blogosphere, which makes sense, given how many people within the community fear the potential ramifications. To be specific, many marketers are worried that artificial intelligence will take their jobs in the near future.

AI seems like a godsend, hastening and simplifying processes that we previously needed weeks and months to complete. The technology's potential seems limitless, handling anything from analytics to content generation. Some teams are already experiencing layoffs as they don't need as many employees for modern marketing tasks.

However, despite everything, we're a long way away from AI completely automating the industry. While artificial intelligence has shown enormous promise, the technology still feels incomplete. Many of these tools make huge blunders and require savvy veterans on the backend. 

In this article, we’ll talk about AI in marketing, how it might impact the profession, and what to expect in the long run.

Misrepresentation of AI

As you well know, AI stands for Artificial Intelligence. The term indicates that we’re dealing with smart machines that can make decisions by themselves and completely automate daily operations. However, this can’t be farther from the truth.

"AI is a misnomer, and the term was probably introduced as a marketing trick," according to lyfemarketing.com, a full-service digital marketing agency. Real artificial intelligence doesn't exist at this time and we're ways away from the robots we see in sci-fi movies. 

All AI systems, whether in marketing programs or elsewhere, utilize sets of commands to execute tasks. They need human input and are database-reliant to perform any actions. So, they can’t replace human employees even though they can significantly boost their workflow.

Nevertheless, that doesn’t necessarily mean AI is stupid or powerless. These systems are highly sophisticated and can do all sorts of things for your company. 

AI vs. marketing employees 

Most of the debates revolving around artificial intelligence suggest that this technology will eventually replace humans. As we're already seeing a high degree of automation in the food and retail industries, some experts predict that a similar thing will happen to marketing and other fields.

However, you need to keep in mind that these robots need significant input to do anything. They need customers’ commands to execute physical tasks. Even then, they’re prone to blunders and malfunctions, something you’ll never experience with human employees. If you just check the news, there were numerous cases where these automated robots couldn’t service the clients.

Right now, AI has its unique spot in the marketing workflow, automating tedious tasks that would take humans too much time. Artificial intelligence can extract customer data, provide analytical insights, and make predictions. But, on the other hand, it fails miserably at executing creative tasks. Take, for example, AI-generated content, which is a far cry from what a human can write.

AI making marketing decisions

The good thing about AI is that it can show us the likelihood of something happening. It can go through massive databases, extrapolating insights for your company and showing potential results of your marketing campaigns. This can be in numerous software features, such as keyword quality scoring or paid campaign predictions.

Unfortunately, what artificial intelligence lacks is experience and context. For example, even if a keyword seems fantastic for your brand, that doesn’t mean you can optimize content for it. The best example is branded keywords that are pretty much useless for any brand besides their owner.

So, while having access to all this data is great, most programs don't understand what makes a certain strategy a winning one. They also don't understand all the interpersonal relationships necessary to boost some of the marketing processes. Just imagine how a link-building campaign would look like if robots were to manage everything from outreach to content creation.

No reason for concern?

In our opinion, AI will usher in a new era of high-quality marketing work. Given that these tools can already automate various marketing tasks, companies that provide low-quality service will quickly get wiped from the market. For example, if your content sucks, what's stopping a client from using an automated tool to generate something similar?

AI will likely affect many jobs and lead to industry transformation. However, as long as you’re a veteran expert or willing to adapt, you’ll always have a place under the sun. In the end, even AI needs assistance and a human touch to maximize its workflow.