Advances in AI and What it Means For Digital Marketing Digital marketing has always been in a state of constant change, running parallel to the advances in computers, software, and mobile devices. However, AI is disrupting the marketing landscape and rapidly accelerating these changes in a multitude of ways. If you’re an eCommerce merchant interested in the state of digital marketing as we head into 2024, this article will highlight what you should keep an eye out for, at a high level. Can AI Tools Replace Marketers? Let’s start off with one of the most pressing questions in the world of AI as it pertains to marketing. Are these tools putting marketers out of jobs? Can you manage the marketing campaigns of your business with the right kinds of AI? Not at all. Like other advanced software applications, AI at its best is still only a tool. To be used with any kind of consistency and effectiveness, this tool has to be in the hands of a seasoned marketer. One who not only understands the ins and outs of traditional digital marketing, but who also has a firm grasp on various AI apps and their use cases. AI in a vacuum is still far and away just a novelty, a way to pass time. Recent updates to popular AI apps such as ChatGPT have actually reduced how effective the app can be as it pertains to automating certain marketing tasks. OpenAI, the creators of ChatGPT, are more focused on advancing AI in general, not creating a “marketing product,” as it were. So one thing to note as we enter 2024, we’re nowhere near close to leaning on AI as a replacement for digital marketing agencies or skilled marketing professionals. Anyone trying to say otherwise is selling you a dream. What Can AI Do Now? In many ways, 2023 was the year of AI. It went from obscure to mainstream in Q1, and by all accounts is now a part of the everyday conversation. Here’s a high level look at some of the various applications of AI as it stands right now: Enhanced Natural Language Understanding and Generation : AI models like GPT-4 can now understand and generate human-like text, enabling them to write essays, create poetry, code software, and even generate creative stories. They can also answer complex questions and engage in nuanced conversations. It can be difficult at times to coax AI apps to generate perfectly usable output, however, but considering where we were last year at this time, this use case looks promising. Advanced Image and Art Creation : Tools like DALL-E can generate highly detailed and creative images from textual descriptions. This technology is used for artistic purposes, graphic design, and visualizing concepts that don’t yet exist in the real world. Considerable advances have been made with AI image generation this year but unless you have a computer powerful enough to run a local build of Stable Diffusion, there are certain limitations in terms of the quality you can expect, as well as options for resolution, removing watermarks, and other issues. As this area of AI expands, it will become a boon for marketers, especially as it pertains to sourcing high-quality creatives for advertising purposes. Sophisticated Healthcare Applications : AI is being used for early disease detection, personalized medicine, and drug discovery. It can analyze medical images with high accuracy, assist in surgical procedures, and predict patient outcomes based on various health markers. Some are speculating that medical applications might be one area where AI will truly excel, because human error stands as one of the biggest issues throughout the world of medicine and care. Enhanced Robotics and Automation : AI-driven robots are becoming more sophisticated, capable of performing complex tasks in industries like manufacturing, agriculture, and logistics. They can navigate complex environments and make autonomous decisions. Improved Speech Recognition and Generation : AI can now understand and generate human speech with high accuracy, enabling voice-activated assistants, real-time translation, and accessibility tools for those with speech or hearing impairments. These capabilities will likely be used to great effect in the gaming sector to create dynamically generated conversations with NPCs within games. Autonomous Vehicles : AI is at the heart of self-driving car technology, allowing vehicles to navigate roads, recognize obstacles, and make split-second decisions without human intervention. Personalized Education : AI systems can adapt learning materials to suit individual student’s needs, pace, and learning style. It’s used for tutoring, language learning, and providing personalized feedback. Predictive Analytics in Business and Finance : AI is used for market analysis, consumer behavior prediction, fraud detection, and automating financial processes. While AI is still in its infancy and therefore somewhat unreliable, once these systems become more trustworthy, this will become one area where marketers and store owners alike may depend for advanced information on campaign performance. AI in Gaming : AI is creating more immersive gaming experiences, with NPCs (non-player characters) that can react more realistically to player actions and game environments that adapt to individual playing styles. Do any of these applications directly apply to marketing right now? Yes and no. Surely there are content farms churning out a bunch of AI content, and a few AI influencer accounts that are leveraging image generating apps to create lifelike personas to use in various marketing efforts, but by and large, AI is still not at a place yet where it has widespread reliable marketing applications. Digital Marketing in 2024: What Will Change? Quality and a rock solid strategy are always going to win out over fly-by-night tactics and low effort paths. However, expect some interesting developments in the world of AI that may potentially improve digital marketing strategies as a whole. Here are some significant advancements in AI that have been introduced recently, particularly by OpenAI at their DevDay 2023 event: GPT-4 Turbo : This is a more advanced version of the AI model GPT-4. It supports a 128K token context window, which allows it to process over 300 pages of text in a single prompt. This model is known for its improved efficiency and lower cost compared to its predecessor, GPT-4. It also features an updated knowledge base up to April 2023 and can handle both text and image inputs. Custom GPTs and the GPT Store : OpenAI introduced Custom GPTs, allowing developers to create tailored versions of GPT for specific tasks or domains without needing coding expertise. Additionally, the GPT Store, a new platform, will act as a marketplace for these custom GPTs, allowing creators to share and monetize their AI models. Assistants API : This new feature enables the creation of more complex, agent-like AI applications. The Assistants API allows developers to build AI assistants capable of understanding complex commands and leveraging a variety of models and tools to perform tasks. Improved Instruction Following and JSON Mode in GPT-4 Turbo : The new JSON mode in GPT-4 Turbo ensures that responses are valid JSON, simplifying connections with other systems. This feature, along with improved instruction following, enhances the model’s utility in various applications. Model Customization : OpenAI has launched an experimental access program for GPT-4 fine-tuning. This program allows organizations to work closely with OpenAI to develop customized GPT-4 models suited to their specific needs. Whisper v3 and Consistency Decoder : This is an advanced version of the automatic speech recognition model, Whisper large-v3, offering enhanced performance across languages. The Consistency Decoder improves image quality, especially in text, faces, and straight lines. New Modalities in the API : GPT-4 Turbo now supports image inputs, enabling the AI to generate image captions, analyze images, and extract information from documents with figures. DALL·E 3 is available through the Images API, and there’s also a Text-to-Speech API for generating human-quality speech from text. Whether you’re a digital marketer or an eCommerce merchant, you can appreciate how some of these advancements could be effectively utilized within the scope of a digital marketing campaign. What is interesting about AI in general right now is how fierce the competition is, with everyone from Meta to Amazon throwing their hat in the ring in order to compete and grab some attention and market share. As always, it’s important to focus on what actually drives revenue and attracts customers to your store – so in that regard, AI still has a little ways to go if marketers are going to utilize it without wasting time. A smart, custom marketing strategy will win over something cooked up by AI at the moment. Be sure you are partnered with an agency that understands the digital marketing landscape and how it shifts. 2024 is sure to have many marketers getting “shiny object syndrome” as they chase the next big thing. Meanwhile the foundational strategies and tactics across SEO, PPC, and social media remain largely the same.
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