Should marketers be worried about AI?
It’s no secret that artificial intelligence is here to stay. After many years of it being a bread crumbed concept, the AI eruption has really come to the forefront over the past few months. From designing specific images to writing short and long form content to generating CSS code - there’s not much it can’t do. And as reluctant as I’ve been to jump on the bandwagon with it, it looks like that’ll soon become unavoidable.
The most important thing to say here is that whilst it’s something we should be dipping our toes into, it’s not yet something that can be wholly relied upon. For now, the marketing industry can rest easy. For example, written content whilst somewhat usable, is still very generic and lacks bespoke brand personality. Generated images still look slightly fake. It’s yet to fully replace manual marketing processes.
What we’ve learnt by delving deeper into the AI tools on offer is that marketing agencies and marketing freelancers shouldn’t be scared of AI, but rather embrace it as a tool to help them work more efficiently. AI can come in quite handy for automating repetitive tasks and freeing up time for more creative and strategic marketing work. It can help to automate tasks such as data analysis and customer segmentation as well as help create more personalised and targeted advertising campaigns.
I am personally useless at all things Google Sheets/Microsoft Excel - it’s no secret that I’m better at words than numbers. But since the launch of The Doers 3.0, I’ve had to get my head around the financials of the business more so than ever before and that has unfortunately meant having to face my fear with formulas and charts and tables. But AI has helped make that a little easier. MySheetAI (I’m sure similar ones exist but this was the first to appear on Google for me) asks you to type in the problem you’re having and it’ll churn out a formula to use to solve it as well as letting you know where to place it.
AI tools can be particularly useful at supporting recovery from writer’s block. Stuck for ideas on new blog posts? Use AI to generate a list of ideas for you - whilst they might not be perfect, they will give you a good starting point to build from. Need to write an email but not sure how to word it? Ask AI to give you a head start and adapt their framework. Need to repurpose your already written social content for different platforms or adapt a blog post into social content? AI can do this for you. It’s not all doom and gloom.
Talking from personal experience, the bit I fear the most is that by having these automated tools to hand, there’s a large chunk taken out of the learning process when you’re finding your feet in the industry. Learning to do the mundane actually gives you incredible groundwork for the rest of your career. I don’t believe you can dive straight into being a marketing strategist without putting in the legwork. I’m concerned that we’ll be inundated by inexperienced strategists who have skipped a few steps and that in turn will tarnish the industry.
Ultimately, like we’ve seen previously with the rise of new social media platforms (TikTok anyone?), they can’t be ignored by marketing agencies and marketing freelancers. The more AI is used across different industries and by a more diverse portfolio of brands and businesses, the more intelligent it becomes. Whilst that’s not necessarily a bad thing, it does mean that we will be kept on our toes with it and it’s imperative that we don’t just ignore it. Instead, learning how we can take advantage of it to make us more effective at our jobs will strengthen and not hinder our abilities.
