AI may just mean the death of marketing as we know it

Technology’s impact on business can be compared to meteors that impact the earth.

For example: App development is a large impact meteor, which changed the way data is consumed, consumer purchases are made, and entertainment is accessed, among others.

Social media is a massive impact which substantially changed human interaction and the way that people and brands interact with each other.

A large percentage of companies that do marketing rely heavily on social media to engage their consumer base.

But the introduction of the personal computer is an extinction level impact for business because virtually every business on earth relies on a computer in some way to function. Businesses that did not adapt to using computers are non-existent.

AI is the next extinction level impact that business marketing will face.

1. AI will drive all analytics: Ever spend hours staring at piles of customer information looking for connections? Send junior employees to sift though Google for days to find the information you need? Ever get automated analytics reports that just didn’t make sense? Relax! AI will find everything you were looking for plus a dozen things you have never thought to ask. Your insights will be crisp, original and accurate. Cascading findings to your digital team? Don’t worry because…

2. AI will drive online interaction: From generating posts to frontline customer interaction, AI technology like chatbots and content generators will almost completely replace community managers and digital strategists.

In fact, the call center industry thinks it will drop 50 percent of its customer service employees due to AI.

3. AI will be your creative developer: Tired of dealing with moody creative types? No problem! Deep thinking AI software will come up with all the weird original ideas you never would have thought of yourself. It won’t take coffee breaks, and won’t take it personally if you reject an idea, it’ll just keep churning them out until you find something you can work with.

4. AI will govern marketing expenditure: Where to do ad buys, where are my customers now?

If you think that media buying has become too complex for a person to do properly, you’re exactly right!

The great news is that media buying will evolve from an agency you hire to a subscription you maintain.

A word of caution, AI recommendations will be widely variable and will often not seem to make common sense.

That’s because most media buying now is based on inaccurate generalizations the machine won’t have to make.

But what will be my job? In some ways, the role of a marketing manager will stay the same: getting the best work out of your marketing employees.

The difference is, your employees won’t be human and being a good manager will shift to getting the best work from your AI.

Marketing managers will become, or will be replaced by AI Supervisors, the next and possibly the last booming career in the profession.

This transition will play out over the next 10 years (kind of like social media) but the AI transformation is already starting.

As with other extinction level technologies, the businesses that will survive the impact are the ones that will start evolving their business models now.

The biggest hurdle companies face is realizing the need to change their marketing or even their business model because of technology.

Walking a marketing department though a transformation at this level is not easy. Most digital guys get stuck because they lead with the technology. That’s not the way to go. You lead with the business challenge and make sure every department knows how it will affect them.

You follow through with how you will adjust your business model to take on the problem. The tech comes last.

Its easy to take a wait and see attitude because it might be a fad.

AI is not a fad, it’s a trend because it saves companies a lot of money and make them massively more effective than non-automated competitors.

This is an extinction level event. If you can see it coming, that’s the first step, the next step is having the courage to start talking about it with your company’s leadership.

They might think you are a little crazy at first, but hey, all the great leaders are. —CONTRIBUTED