We all love innovation and marketers are anxious to try new things. Artificial Intelligence as a major tool for marketers is on the horizon but it’s not quite there yet.
Artificial Intelligence can be categorized into five categories:
- REASONING- think Netflix’s recommendation engine
- KNOWLEDGE – IBM Watson’s winning on Jeopardy
- PLANNING – Alphabet’s self – driving technology venture
- COMMUNICATION – Amazon’s Alexa
- RECOGNITION – Baidu explaining images with words for the blind
We can learn from big brand failures with artificial intelligence. For instance Coca-Cola, Walmart and Starbucks were just a few of the brands that pulled their business after they learned that Google’s algorithms had been running their ads against offensive YouTube content. AI paired ads appropriately with users but didn’t discern between the types of videos being watched.
In 2016 BMW attempted to integrate Amazon’s Alexa as a personal assistant into their cars. It only sort of worked. A great idea but not quite ready for prime time.
No doubt that artificial intelligence when combined with data, audience, and user behavior and messaging will provide a strong conversion. It’s just not there.
It is estimated that 30% of searches will be voice activated without a screen by 2020. Marketers will need to learn how to harness the power of Google Home, Amazon’s Echo (Alexa) and Apple’s soon to be released version. Voice apps are the future. Experts believe that Alexa’s voice will give way to ‘brand voices” that interact with consumers on voice platforms. Choosing a voice for your brand will become as important as choosing a color scheme and font. Brands have spent billions on package design to stand out on the physical shelf and will now need to find the equivalent with sound.