Artificial Intelligence has been around for a while now. Its applications are starting to become more mainstream. Marketing and Advertising campaigns are an area where a lot of solutions have become available. We’ve had some clients ask about our point of view on these offerings so here it is.

AI can be a powerful tool when used in the right situation. It can see patterns humans can’t and use data to improve models over time, whether through predictive analytics or true machine learning. If you have a very clear idea of how your business operates, and all vectors of your business activities are well known, understood, and documented, you might be a good candidate for an AI solution.

Automation usage can be a good marker for AI adoption readiness. Successful automation of well-defined workflows, using automation to scale large initiatives or process large data sets can be signals that AI could be beneficial to the organization. Automation implementation requires an understanding of processes sufficient to start exploring AI.

If you’re still developing your models, if you have areas of your business that are changing, are being newly developed, or aren’t fully integrated into your operations, AI might not be able to do that much for you. If you haven’t introduced automation to any of your marketing channels or operations, trying to skip ahead to introduce AI may be more effort than the benefits of adoption will offset.

For example, it’s kind of like how a bank is most willing to lend money to people who need it the least. The best candidates for AI are those that already have the most complete models and most optimized systems. It’s not a magic bullet and if you’re not ready for it, trying to implement may cause more harm than good.

If you think you’re a good candidate to give AI a shot, there are some other factors you should consider. AI is good at detecting patterns and filling in the blanks, but most platforms aren’t so great yet at explaining why. Not a lot of them have feedback loop functionality built in to explain why they are making the decisions they are making and why they’re the right choices. Unwinding a string of bad decisions your AI solution made because you tried to use it before you were ready can be a big mess to clean up.

Similarly, in advertising applications, they’re very good at putting the who, what, when, and where together – but aren’t great at creating campaigns that address why someone should care.

In our experience so far, it has been difficult for these solutions to create and optimize integrated campaigns that aren’t easily distinguishable from those that are man-made.

Again, if your brand creative and how it’s applied to your marketing and advertising channels is straightforward, AI might be a good solution. If it still takes a human touch, AI might not be the right choice yet.

At this stage, we still think Elon Musk is right, “Humans are underrated.”

If you still need humans to help with your SEO, paid media, email, or social needs, contact Anvil Media.

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