Content marketing is a strange animal. It’s the culmination of art, communications, sales, and science. As content creators, we like to think of it as something human and organic. Something that couldn’t be replicated or AI-generated…and yet with increasing frequency we find ourselves confronted with new articles and examples of AI infiltrating the world of art, music, and writing.
So, is it time to embrace the era of AI-powered marketing? Should you completely replace your content creation team and digital marketing platforms with artificial intelligence?
Move aside, Issac Asimov, because we’re about to sit down and unpack the reality of AI’s current influence on marketing with some examples of AI in Marketing.
Amazon’s Artificial Reality Shopping Experience
Have you seen Zenon: Girl of the 21st Century? (We forgive you if have not.) This Disney Channel Original Movie features a scene where Zenon can try on clothes using a holographic machine before purchasing them. While we’re not quite there yet, Amazon has taken a step that sets our imaginations running wild.
If you’ve been shopping for furniture on Amazon, you might have seen the “view in your room” function available through the Amazon App. This may not seem super impressive at first glance, but when you realize it’s a technology that lets you see a piece of furniture in your home, based on your room dimensions and the dimensions of the object you’re thinking of buying, it suddenly seems a lot more remarkable.
While this may not seem like an example of AI in marketing at first glance, it’s important to remember that artificial reality (AR) is just one step removed from artificial intelligence. Meta is also considering incorporating this kind of system into its AR, and it’s no wonder! Is there anything more powerful than being able to see an item sitting there in your home before you even buy it?
AI-Generated Art and Why It’s Controversial
Take a good hard look at this picture. Eerily beautiful, it touches upon the surreal and ignites the senses. The artist? Jason Allen…and the popular AI Art Generating software MidJourney.
This example of AI in art sparked some controversy, with some people even comparing using AI in an art competition to driving a Ferrari across the finish line of a major race. Others suggest it’s the ultimate example of copyright fraud – because the AI learns by pulling and combining thousands of images to generate these pieces.
But it’s not as easy as you’d think to type in some words and ask a computer to generate award-winning art. We tried generating our own AI art a few times, and the results were pretty terrifying. Jason admitted to having to go into Photoshop to make adjustments to this piece to do things like “add a head to someone”. Yikes.
But it’s not just art competitions that are being invaded by AI content creators. Other spaces, such as graphic design, are finding AI to be a useful tool when creating logos.
AI art will continue to improve, but utilizing it is a skill set that requires time, patience, and some digital editing skills. Either way, you’ll probably want a graphic designer, make a Canva account, or go through a stock-photo website such as Envato, iStock, Pexels, or one of the many other websites out there for your basic graphic needs.
AI Influencers Are Just Creepy
If you read our September Marketing Minute, you know that AI is not exclusive to artists. AI influencers are another (and sometimes just as creepy) example of AI in marketing, and one that has been fairly successful on social media platforms such as Instagram. Many influencers (such as Miquela, pictured above) are just artificial intelligence pages, generating pictures and personalities to sell products. And it’s working. Miquela has scored a deal as the face of brands like PacSun. And she isn’t the only one.
What does this mean for marketers? Well, instead of paying a model or influencer to market your content, you can pay a programmer to create one for you. While having an AI influencer certainly makes your product stand out from the crowd, there’s a wider selection of human influencers out there who might be more in line with your product or business.
But Miquela isn’t the first, and she certainly won’t be the last.
AI Copywriters (Noooooo! )
ChatGPT exploded onto the scene this year! For a moment, this example of AI in marketing hit a little too close to home for our team. As a collection of living, breathing writers who make incredible high-quality content using our flesh-and-blood fingers, the idea of artificial intelligence completely taking over the copywriting industry is quite alarming.
However, we’re dedicated to our readers, so we rolled up our sleeves and decided it was time to face the music and begin testing!
For one, they are not so much AI writers as writing assistant tools. These tools generate headlines and provide additional writing suggestions by looking for patterns from previous data and meeting requirements suggested by the writers. Conditions like: “must contain the word “sale.” It can be a great jumping-off point…buuuuuuut….
The problem is that ChatGPT has answered our prompts with contradictory or even flat-out untrue information. Its content is also dry as a desert and completely lacking in originality. We’ll be going more into our deep-dive and research on AI as a tool for Copywriters in later blogs. As of now, we can safely say that human writers are in and Robo-writer is out.
Our Conclusion
The Artificial cat is out of the Intelligence bag. These technologies will continue to develop, and algorithms will continue to improve and affect our ability to create original marketing content. From SEO Spiders who crawl websites to ensure a pleasant user experience to exploring artificial reality as a space to market physical products – AI in marketing is here to stay…
But, for the foreseeable future, human marketing is where the sizzle is.
Is your marketing strategy missing that sizzle? Do you feel like all your content has been generated by last-generation AI? No need to panic; we can help you with that! Check out our Sizzlin’ Quiz to find out how to improve your marketing strategy today.