We’re not talking about Skynet (although, that’s a terrifying thought!) integrating into your marketing campaign; we’re talking about how the tools that make your life so much easier are the stepping stones for more intelligent artificial intelligence programs to be developed.
But what do we mean when talking about artificial intelligence in digital marketing?
The Road So Far
Although it’s barely been 60 years since the term artificial intelligence has been integrated into our pop culture, artificial intelligence in marketing has become a whole different beast. From deep learning to machine learning and the processing of natural language, machines seem to be evolving quickly – again, not at all scary, right?
Whether this means using voice search for your start-up or crunching data much quicker, it seems like artificial intelligence really is here to stay. Machine learning may sound terrifying, but with its help, a master algorithm (which is an unmistakable description of a way to solve a range of problems) could truly help marketing agencies everywhere have a more varied access. Instead of specific programs being created for every single need, isn’t it better to have one master algorithm to address it all?
And better yet; with machine learning you don’t have to worry about forgetting to program your computer to work. This master algorithm will do everything for you, all you need to do is to feed it data. This allows computers to learn similarly to how you would learn, but faster and without any specific programming being needed.
Oh, the humanity!
Although you can relax and stop worrying about Skynet overtaking your marketing campaigns, it is expected that artificial intelligence will take a more human shape as it advances. Figuratively, at least for now. Moore’s Law basically says that hardware will keep evolving, which is noticeable through the quantum computing advancements we’ve seen being made recently.
Being able to learn what could be decades of information in mere seconds and to keep learning is what makes computers start to seem more human. They start to hold conversations and even to create their own algorithms, becoming themselves masters and creators.
Drama aside, take the example of Amazon’s recommended purchases section. According to a McKinsey study, Amazon’s recommended purchases algorithm has gotten so accurate that it’s generated 35% of the company’s revenue.
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Big data needs translate to how leads are generated; customer profiles and data analysis are done much more accurately and quickly. Instead of just scratching the surface, artificial intelligence will be able to go beyond customers’ surface level of information and give many more insights into potential prospects.
This deep learning method lets the algorithm build from a single layer of information so that the understanding of a deeper network of data is possible. Through clustering, for example, neural networks of true or false questions that can represent numerical data. Asked repeatedly, this method allows machines to learn all the answers to the questions and turn them into new rules that evolve when new data appears. New data means an added layer of information with subsequent increase of intelligence and learning from mistakes.
A very smart thing, indeed.
Into The Future We Go
A Forrester report estimates that approximately more than 20 million Amazon smart speakers were bought in 2017 (like that Alexa virtual assistant you may have gotten last Christmas). Millions of people are already getting used to interacting with artificial intelligence through speech recognition. We can only expect this number to increase with voice identification and recognition systems increasingly being integrated into TVs, smartphones, and computers. In fact, ComScore says that 50% of all searches will be voice searches by 2020.
Natural language processing is what allows your smartphone to answer your questions, whether you use slang or not. Artificial intelligence understands how complex your question is and transforms your answers into text, called natural language generation.
Instead of mimicking human thinking, artificial intelligence of tomorrow will mimic the functions of the brain’s biological neurons. Helping digital marketing to also evolve, unsupervised learning in artificial intelligence has increased because of our big data necessities. Input data only is used to help develop a predictive model, which basically makes your life much easier.
40% of sales-related activities can be automated by 2020, which really frees up time for sales teams pursue the human and emotional side of lead generations. Artificial intelligence systems can take over the mundane – sometimes even boring – tasks like lead management and processing transactions.
The Internet of Things, or IoT, is the interconnectivity of smart devices, such as your computer, TV, phone, and other technology being connected. By 2020, it’s expected that around 50 billion devices will be connected through the internet.
To summarise, artificial intelligence systems in marketing will impact us in the future through the following:
- Content becomes very personalized
- Data will be held above intuition
- Prospects will become more defined
- Professionals will be able to connect and create better relationships
- Customer service will be faster
Advanced artificial intelligence in marketing will only help to make people’s jobs easier, not replace them. Artificial intelligence has the power to cross out all the automated and boring tasks, so you can focus on being creative.
