The artificial intelligence industry has gained huge momentum in the past few years, and this year will be no different. Marketing companies across the globe are debating the opportunities and risks, whether AI will aid or damage their business – and how best to use it. Here, we will discuss the pros and cons of integrating AI into your marketing communications, especially generative AI.
What is generative AI? Generative AI is a type of artificial intelligence that takes human input and can create something new with it, from music to writing to video or images. It can also be used outside the creative industries for generative engineering and synthetic data. The definition of AI is “a machine’s ability to perform the cognitive functions we usually associate with human minds.” This shows the depth to which an AI tool can be used, and it can be an incredibly powerful tool that is a hot topic of conversation across many industries. Specifically for marketing and PR, the development of sites such as ChatGPT and Jasper can be an aid when writing social media posts, press releases, blogs, or even just completing small admin tasks such as email correspondence and proofreading so your hands are freed to take on the bigger jobs.
Many marketing professionals are saying that AI has the potential to make a business more efficient and profitable and that any organization that needs to produce drafts of clearly written materials potentially stands to benefit. Chief marketing directors are increasingly embracing the technology – a global survey in 2022 found that 90 percent of marketing professionals across 35 countries were using artificial intelligence tools to automate customer interactions, compared to 88 percent in 2021. However, it doesn’t come without its risks. As the technology is still fairly new, the full scope of its impact is still unknown – as are the risks.
The main concerns are around data law breaches and plagiarism. As AI sites such as ChatGPT are still being developed, people don’t fully understand what happens with the information you put in. Companies are concerned that potentially confidential information may be kept on the site’s database and could breach data protection laws for their clients. Due to the majority of the information in the AI bots’ “brain” being “trained” from the internet, people are concerned about plagiarism and the effect of using content written by the site. Though these concerns are valid, there is a rule of thumb you can follow:
- Data protection – If you are worried about where the data goes on particular sites, look into their “privacy policy” or contact them directly.
- This should give you the reassurance you need to decide whether AI chat bots are a viable option for your company. And if you’re really worried… don’t use it. It’s not absolutely necessary for a company’s success, and client data safety always comes first!
Plagiarism could be a potentially big issue – however, AI can be used for smaller tasks such as proofreading, simplifying written content, or even creating project plans. Smaller admin tasks are easily checked to make sure no information is incorrect.
We tested ChatGPT to evaluate its capabilities when writing a social media post. My prompt was “Create a short social media post for a marketing company ‘Aro’ promoting a new service they offer.” It came up with this:
✨ Introducing Aro’s “Quick Impact” Package! Boost your brand fast. 🚀 🎉 Early birds get 10% off! #AroQuickImpact #BrandBoost
It’s not a bad draft; it’s clever in some ways and stimulates ideas and discussion. The hashtags are ok, but it is formulaic and more suitable for B2C, and not applicable for advanced engineering and science. In terms of creating an individual AI bot for your company, currently it is not recommended by professionals as developing a generative-AI model is so resource-intensive that it is out of reach for all but the biggest and best-resourced companies.
But otherwise, many of the online tools are either cheap or free – so can be very accessible. It is believed that over the next few years, many more generative AI models will emerge with a wide variety of different specializations. This will be invaluable for companies that offer a wide range of services.
Overall, AI can be an incredibly useful tool for PR & marketing companies as long as it’s used with caution. You should use it to aid your writers and content developers, not replace them. If you would like to know more about how you can integrate AI into your marketing and PR, contact us today – E: info@aroprandmarketing.co.uk, T: 0117 379 0008.
