What AI can–-and can’t—do for your business marketing plans.

 

Generative AI is on the rise. 

Chatbots are on business web pages, ready to answer consumer questions, AI image generators are popping out promos, and ChatGPT is creating blogs and magazine articles for otherwise occupied business owners. Gone are the days of clunky-worded searches on Google littered with keywords and crossed fingers. Generative AI search is giving users real answers to actual questions.

And it’s only getting smarter.

But, it’s not perfect. Before you consider implementing AI into your business practices, you need to know what to expect—the good and the bad.

 

What this means for businesses 

Businesses have a new, cheap (even free) way to reach consumers. 

Pro: Chatbots actually sound like people now. You can implement a chatbot on your webpage to give customers immediate help and, with proper programming, in-depth information about their potential problems.

  • Con: Customers have various problems that aren’t always so cut and dried, and a chatbot may not be able to provide all possible solutions to a problem. But for textbook issues, chatbots are a great option.

Pro: Whippet fast content creation. ChatGPT can spit out an article about virtually any topic you ask. Want to post a blog about finding the right paint? Or something snappy for socials on selling? AI can give that to you! It’s saving business owners time, money, brain space, and—did I mention time?

  • Con: If you’ve used ChatGPT, you know that you can spot when something has been created by a bot. AI tends to use the same type of language for the same topics, and if you don’t tweak the content to make it your own, it can look repetitive. 

Pro: AI is free! Time is money, friend, and any way you can get information or resources free is money well spent. 

  • Con: You get what you pay for. AI is still not perfect. If you’ve ever tried to use AI imaging at all, you’ll know what we’re talking about. Hands aren’t quite right. Rooms don’t have the correct dimensions. Why does that smile have an extra set of teeth? It can be frustrating and take ages to work out correct phrasing. You can save yourself a headache by hiring an actual person to graphically design your promos.

Pro: Market research. Businesses can leverage generative search to analyze trends, sentiments, and customer feedback across various online platforms. This can aid in market research and help companies make data-driven decisions.

  • Con: AI can give answers that are confidently wrong, even biased. They have what’s called “hallucinations,” where they’ll misname objects, provide incorrect data, and even express inappropriate emotions to users. In February 2023, Microsoft’s Bing bot analyzed an earnings statement from Gap, providing an incorrect summary of facts and figures. Businesses have to double-check the output of AI for accuracy, something you’d also have to do with a human.

Though generative AI can absolutely provide amazing, fast resources, it may not be the replacement some people hope for. Businesses can use AI as a tool, but not a replacement.

 

What this means for consumers

Rather than getting pages of outsourced links, chatbots can provide naturally flowing conversations and specific answers to questions at lightning speed. 

Pro: Instant responses. No more automated phone conversations that require consumer voice responses while their children scream in the background. Chatbots can give consumers the instantaneous response they need.

  • Con: Remember those bot hallucinations? As advanced as chatbots have become, they can’t always give consumers the answers a knowledgeable human could provide, and as we’ve learned, the answers might even be wrong. 

Pro: Personalized recommendations and educational resources. Advanced AI algorithms enable chatbots to learn and understand user preferences over time. They can even offer educational content, tutorials, and guidance to users, enhancing their understanding of products or services.

  • Con: The business owner-consumer relationship might suffer from a lack of presence. People know they’re talking to a robot. And, if the bot is giving out bad information, the business owner could lose clients without even realizing why.

Pro: Language translation. If a business owner doesn’t speak the same language as their customer, AI can break that barrier with translation apps. To date, Google Translate can interpret 133 languages at various levels and has over 500 million users worldwide.

  • Con: The interpretations aren’t always precise, and in a business where communication demands precision, a third party might be a better option.

 

While generative AI is leaps and bounds farther along than it used to be, there is one thing AI can’t seem to replace–the human touch. 

The best way to navigate this new course is to hire a marketing company to help you in your efforts and teach you ways you can implement AI, or take over the job completely so you can focus on what really matters—the heart of your business.