What Impact Can Artificial Intelligence Make on Marketing?
Fear and anxiety are natural responses to change, but fewer changes trigger those feelings more than technology. As technology promises progress, it renders familiar objects and habits obsolete. Phone books and photo albums are redundant, and you no longer have to jot down directions on a used envelope or memorize your mother’s phone number. The effects of technology don’t make themselves known until it’s too late.
It’s still too soon to discern how AI-generated content will impact written communication, but here are some points to consider.
Students are the ones who may suffer the most.
Writing is so much more than stringing words together in a coherent sentence. It requires a person to read, question, and craft an argument. Students who depend on AI to write their papers will rob themselves of the intellectual rigor gained from writing. AI is a tool, not a substitute.
You can use AI to generate written content, but you still have to understand what good writing is.
Content creators have been using Canva for graphic design, but that doesn’t mean they understand the principles of graphic design (shapes, lines, color theory, and fonts that don’t hurt your eyes.) A qualified designer will understand how to use those elements to create a professional design.
Content creators can use ChatGPT to create the meat of the content, but they still have to edit for voice, style, and branding. ChatGPT can write copy for a soda commercial, but a Pepsi commercial isn’t going to sound the same as a Coke commercial. Audiences don’t have patience for content that sounds, well, robotic. They get bored and move on, and the brand loses engagement. AI is a tool, not a substitute.
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Have you ever searched a query to troubleshoot a problem on your iPhone and turned up results from 2019 that was five software updates ago? Or you look up a recipe and scroll through pictures, pop-ups, and blocks of text until you finally get to the recipe at the bottom? You can thank Search Engine Optimization (SEO) for that loathsome experience.
Google is spooked that AI’s search results will surpass theirs, but the quality of Google’s search results has been plummeting for a long time. Because of SEO, a blog post needs to be a minimum of 300 words to optimize its search engine ranking. Elements such as pictures, links, and subheadings also help, and of course, sponsored ads. SEO was intended to improve the quality of results, but like all good intentions, it paved the road to hell.
Content creators and social media marketers are really good at adapting to changes in the platform. Fluff articles rise to the top, and what is the most popular isn’t necessarily the most helpful.
Open AI is a formidable competitor. For Google to hold its dominance, it must embrace these advances, not resist them. Open AI was founded in 2015 (according to a simple Google search.) Open AI didn’t build ChatGPT overnight. It took years of hard work, dedication, and scrubbing the digital world for data. Its program has become increasingly sophisticated to be the program that we know today, and it will continue to do so.
The question isn’t how AI will change our world but how we want it to improve our world. That is the opportunity we have before us.
Photo by Markus Spiske on Unsplash
