As a current topic, Artificial Intelligence (AI) is becoming very noticeable. We still need to understand a little more about the impact it will have on our lives in the coming years; what can be expected is that it will be provocative. Specifically, in marketing, its impact has already been experienced in many ways for a long time. Now it is convenient to visualize a little the effect that it could have for the area and the companies.
The first thing is to understand what AI is. In his GateNotes, Bill Gates says that “technically, the term AI refers to a model created to solve a specific problem or provide a particular service.” The term refers to making a software program with which a solution is sought. An example would be to identify the market segment that buys our product in a specific place. It can be programmed so that the information obtained from a repository, database or simply from the Internet is generated.
Many people seem to think that the AI is what in some futuristic movies it has been seen as in Terminator or with the nice Wall.E. What Gates calls “artificial general intelligence” or General AI (IAG) still needs to be developed. IAG implies software that is capable of learning. Apparently it still needs to be developed and its feasibility and possibilities are much debated. Ever since calculators were developed, there has been a search for machines that do calculations more accurately, effectively, and efficiently than humans. With the evolution of AI, computers help in a very varied way in all kinds of areas and fields of business, entertainment, health, education, among many others. At the end of the day, you still program with zeroes and ones using processors that compute as quickly, accurately, efficiently, and effectively as possible. Its output causes certain programs to run as expected. This is IA, different from IAG.
AI is developed in virtually all parts of the world. In almost every country and market it is possible to find people with great capacity and understanding of the subject. AI offers marketing an opportunity to perform many different tasks with its current characteristics of speed, precision, effectiveness and efficiency. All of this impacts marketing productivity in many ways, some of which may still be difficult to visualize or understand.
Specifically, in marketing, the sales area is already impacted by AI. For example, there are already many systems that are used to make sales online or by phone, or cell phone if preferred. Many Call Centers are seriously considering whether to keep their staff or switch to a Chatbot. A Chatbot is a computer software program that simulates and processes a human conversation (written or spoken), allowing humans to interact with digital devices as if they were communicating with a real person. Many calls we receive from advertising campaigns use it, as do many companies and organizations to interact with their consumers. Companies that already use it are Walmart, Soriana, Farmacias del Ahorro, among others, facilitating interaction and clarifying doubts from their customers.
Today’s AI development allows the systems in which it is used to emulate known human behavior. That is, its base lies in a very large amount of information with which the system is fed, being its limitation in that very fact, since it will never be able to do more than what its database contains. When it seems to learn it is because additional material has been added to that database and it has new data to respond to. So the use of AI in marketing is nothing new, it has been used for a long time helping to improve data analysis, personalization, some information exchanges and in many cases online advertising, mainly. The potential in marketing looks very broad; in the next relative we will see the IAG, topic for an increasingly near future.
