By Denise Persson
With more than 60 local generative artificial intelligence (AI) startups and USD 590 million in funding raised, it is safe to say that India’s generative AI buzz is just getting started. But with most of the discussion centered around productivity, many are overlooking the full promise of generative AI as a means to drive marketing strategies. Simply put, cutting-edge marketing relies on a combination of data insights and creativity. This is where generative AI can supplement human ingenuity with its unparalleled access to a trove of content and data insights.
This does not mean that AI will make the marketing industry unrecognisable. What generative AI will do is augment and enhance how marketing professionals work. For one, it will empower predictive analytics. Sales and marketing teams are at their best when they work closely. With multiple human touchpoints across any given sales cycle and customer journey, a lot of data is generated from which AI and ML can derive insights into what a sales pipeline will look like in the coming months. This enables marketing to adjust their marketing investments exactly as needed.
Where does generative AI fit in this picture? It can generate lines of code faster, enabling developers to accelerate the lifecycle of predictive analytics initiatives. However, predictive analytics is not the only way generative AI can speed up marketing’s response to market conditions. With generative AI apps powered by proprietary data, team members can reduce the hours spent on rote tasks, allowing them to focus on higher-impact activities. For example, instead of spending an entire afternoon compiling lists of possible leads, a marketing professional can simply use a generative AI tool to come up with such a list within seconds.
Generative AI can also drive innovation by streamlining the creative process. Marketing teams do their best work when one member comes up with an idea and the whole team helps iterate on it until it becomes a whole integrated campaign. Generative AI can be used during the feedback loop by developing more ideas. The human touch is present, but the creative process is hastened and enhanced with AI. For example, a generative AI tool can come up with better headlines and visual designs in a fraction of the time it would take human team members.
Marketing teams also generate tremendous amounts of data and generative AI can help teams make the most of that information. With the large amounts of unstructured and semi-structured data available to marketing teams, well-trained generative AI tools can be prompted to develop effective, audience-specific social media posts, landing pages, and emails.
Preparing your organisation for Generative AI
Augmenting human creativity with the power of generative AI holds so much promise that the use cases we know now are only the tip of the proverbial iceberg. Companies that are looking to get a head start should, therefore, ensure that they have laid down the foundations for doing so.
An important consideration in deploying generative AI is the availability of data. Contextualisation is a key benefit of generative AI and large language models (LLMs). But for enterprises with legacy, on-premise systems, their data is usually isolated within silos. Organisations looking to deploy generative AI solutions for their marketing efforts should leverage cloud data platforms to unify all their internal data.
Aside from breaking down silos, businesses should also ensure seamless access to all their data. A lot of the data generated by marketing teams is either unstructured or semi-structured; such as social media posts, emails, and text documents, to name a few. Marketing teams should ensure that their cloud data platforms can load, integrate, and analyse all types of data.
Last but not least, marketers should work with cross-functional teams of data scientists, lawyers, and security professionals to proactively address data governance and security concerns through the establishment of necessary guardrails. They should also ensure their infrastructure is up to the task of protecting sensitive data such as personally identifiable information (PII) and internal documents.
Generative AI is the future of marketing
From improving predictive analytics and hastening processes to stimulating creativity and enabling greater personalisation, generative AI offers a myriad of benefits to enhance marketing strategies.
Though it is already driving a profound shift across software and enterprises, the journey is just getting started. Organisations can get ahead by preparing their infrastructure to make full use of generative AI’s promise. This will ultimately enable them to break down data silos, ensure seamless access to all types of data, and address data governance and security concerns proactively. These are the necessary ingredients for combining the best parts of human creativity and AI to propel marketing strategies to new heights.
The author is CMO, Snowflake
(With insights from Cointelegraph)
