AI is touching every industry and rapidly changing the way we work, and think. The degree to which artificial intelligence is being leveraged in business, however, varies as much as individual businesses themselves.
In marketing and public relations, some professionals have been slow to acknowledge AI, whether out of fear of the unknown or concerns about accuracy and job displacement. While others have wholeheartedly embraced this new resource – with some even over-utilizing it at the expense of originality, a human touch and a deeper strategic approach. Generative AI can be used to create new content such as texts, audio, images and video, but it is not a replacement for humans. However, these tools can help organize and produce content faster, inspire ideas and generally free up time for strategic thinking and creative production.
A recent survey by The Conference Board and Ragan Communications found 87% of marketers and 85% of communicators have used AI or experimented with its tools for at least one application. A majority of the respondents are including AI in their regular workflow and half expect it will help with future product and services innovation, while 16 percent say AI will have a negative impact.
Most marketing and communications pros have been using some form of AI for years (think Grammarly), but the advent of powerful tools like ChatGPT have caused a flurry of questions and fears: plagiarism and proprietary rights, factuality, loss of creativity and empathy, and job displacements. All legitimate concerns and, as with any new path, it’s wise to proceed with caution – but also not let bumps become barriers to moving forward. AI is revolutionizing our lives and our work. Let’s face it, explore its potential and leverage it to our advantage.
Clarify, Create and Verify
Attorneys and scholars are debating the legal and moral aspects of AI, and as new options emerge, so will new discourse. Many of the other concerns can be addressed simply by using practical judgment.
If used strategically, AI tools can help marketers streamline administrative tasks, analyze data, and provide a host of thought starters to inspire creative ideas. Some of the more popular applications include jasper.ai (content creation), fireflies.ai (meeting notes), OpusClip (repurpose videos into reels) and Fliki (convert text to audio/video) and, of course, ChatGPT.
ChatGPT introduced us to AI’s transformative potential. The powerful chatbot soars beyond analyzing data and can churn out content – text, images, audio, data – within seconds. It launched in late 2022, so it’s limited it what it “knows,” but it knows its limitations:
“What major events happened in 2023?”
Answer: “I apologize, but I don’t have real-time data as my knowledge was last updated in September 2021. Therefore, I cannot provide information on events that have occurred in 2023. I recommend checking reliable news sources or websites that provide current event updates …
That’s the rule of research: Check and double-check your sources. Facts are non-negotiable… and even the best-trained AI can still offer inaccurate, outdated or misleading information.
A Collaborative Sounding Board, Not a Threat
In terms of creativity, ChatGPT can inspire it rather than stifle it. Like any good sounding board, it helps inspire ideas and offers suggestions as a base on which to grow. What are ways ChatGPT can help marketing professionals? We asked it for a few suggestions (and revised the answers, of course!):
- Content generation: ChatGPT can quickly generate ideas for a variety of marketing content, including blogs, social media posts, eblasts and messaging campaigns.
- Audience engagement: It can assist in creating personalized responses to customer questions and comments on social media channels, so markets are better able to engage with their targets. Timely responses, particularly to inquiries, boost customer satisfaction and help build community relations.
- Market research and insights: ChatGPT can quickly analyze and efficiently summarize market and industry trends, customer input, and even what the competition is up to, from multiple sources.
That’s collaboration, and you get out what you put in. These are ideas, which we can then develop and refine to create content, messaging and reports, in our words and in sync with our clients’ values and key message points. AI has caused the elimination of certain jobs, and will continue to do so. No matter how “intelligent,” however, it cannot replace the creativity, innovation and strategic thinking professional marketers bring to the table. Marketing has always (and will continue to) require a “human” touch to be successful.
“The reality is we need each other,” Dr. Lisa Palmer, an AI business strategist, said in a recent report in Forbes. “AI brings logic, scale and 24/7 focus, while humans bring creativity, judgment and adaptability. When we work together in an augmented intelligence partnership, the whole is greater than the sum of its parts.”
