“Westworld,” a sci-fi thread on robots-meets-Westerns, is the newest HBO escapist series to warm your water cooler chats until “Game of Thrones” freezes over. And 35 years after the original, the “Blade Runner” sequel brings realistic robotic replicants back in the spotlight. Artificial intelligence is quickly becoming the hottest thing since fidget spinners, and it’s not just because Boston’s Jibo is shipping to early backers, at last. Along with the hype, these futuristic fantasies conjure fears of terminator machines taking over and quickly spotting our squishy, human weaknesses.
The question on everyone’s minds is: Will automation and AI program me out of a job?
In reality, AI is quickly permeating many aspects of our daily lives. Businesses are looking to this advanced technology to improve a variety of processes, from making weather forecasts and meteorological models more accurate, to crunching hospital data and predicting disease, to helping farmers save money on pesticides, to analyzing financial or marketing dashboards and serving highlights to help teams make decisions and grow revenue faster.
But no, AI won’t put skilled talent out of a job.
In fact, there’s a great deal of investment in the AI space in the hopes it will free up demands on your attention, so you can do more of what you do best. For marketers, AI puts a lot of new instruments in your toolkit. We’ve already started to see the impact that chatbots or voice-activated assistants like Alexa and Siri can have for helping customers make decisions and purchases faster.
Behind the scenes, AI is taking over the manual tasks or time sucks that are more labor-intensive. For example, Chorus, a Metis client, provides AI that transcribes and analyzes sales calls for more effective selling. And AI is also taking over the many disparate marketing dashboards and KPI data to automatically analyze and provide recommendations to achieve your goals, according to Datorama.
Businesses know firsthand the data deluge is real, and those that can harness the insights for their industries will gain the competitive advantage. In some cases, AI can lend a fresh set of “eyes” to tackle the overload, identify blind spots and start giving you informed options. Don’t let Hollywood hijack how you perceive AI. In practice, it’s helping you do your job smarter and faster.
Want to get the inside track on how AI, machine learning and other martech is transforming business? Check out this sample of movers and shakers.