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What every marketer needs to know about AI

Constellation Research predicts businesses will spend more than $100 billion per year on AI technologies by 2025 – a drastic increase from the $2 billion spent in 2015.

Marketing will contribute to this growth, as AI brings immense value to marketing and advertising teams from profile building, advanced targeting and optimization. Marketers are already faced with more than 7,000 different technology solutions, which creates a huge struggle for marketers to untangle all of the data and insights and help the tools talk with each other. AI can help acquire, filter and analyze the data that’s coming from an already large tech stack.

It’s time to cozy up to AI solutions and understand how they can help you create stronger strategies and execute them more effectively. We’re in prime-time growth. AI tools have the potential to push the early-adopters to the top ahead of the laggards.

We’ve rounded up some required reading to get you up to speed on the state of and potential for AI. Happy learning!

8 Ways Intelligent Marketers Use Artificial Intelligence – Karola Karlson at the Content Marketing Institute writes, “AI enables marketers to fulfill a dream previously considered impossible – to engage with every individual customer in a personalized and meaningful way.” Strong words. From PPC ads to personalization to chatbots, read her article for a primer on all the basic marketing applications of AI technology. 

How Marketers Can Prepare for Unintended Consequences of AI – AI takes a lot of work off humans with smarter, faster algorithms. It still needs to be taught, though, and if marketers apply the wrong goals, all the machine learning is for naught. The Trade Desk’s chief client officer warns marketers to watch out for unintended consequences.

AI Models of Real Consumers Could Hold Marketing Insights – Now we’re getting to the futuristic side of AI. Here’s a story about how Tanjo is developing AI that can stand in for real humans in market research. The No. 1 rule of marketing is to know your buyer, and while nothing can replace actual conversations, this approach could be cheaper and faster. 

Adopting new technologies does not come without challenges. The complexities of AI mean that marketers must get their data in order – which is not an easy feat. 

Marketers Struggle With Tying Data To AI Systems – About 21 percent of marketers believe data is a challenge to access and difficult to use, according to a report from the CMO Council and IBM Watson Customer Engagement. It found 78 percent of companies want to implement AI in the next 12 months, but 68 percent of marketers say second- and third-party data is only partially or barely integrated into current data systems. 

6 Ways Marketers are Embracing Artificial Intelligence (AI)Gartner analyst Martha Mathers says, “It’s pretty critical that you look at the data that you have … Do you know enough about your customers to actually be able to use the tool? We can get so distracted by that next shiny object that we don't think about the fundamentals. A lot of the marketers we talk to today are still early in their data and analytics maturity.” Once you do have the fundamentals, there are many ways to embed AI in your programs.

And finally, the question on everyone’s mind: Is a robot going to steal your job?

How will AI affect our jobs? Predictions from Uber, Microsoft, IBM, and more – The leaders who answered this question are at the top of their games, so hopefully they will help you breathe a sigh of relief. The consensus is that while AI and maturing technology may bring a shift in the types of jobs available, it should support workers and help them be better at their jobs, rather than take over. 

 

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