How marketers can scale the future with generative AI

Generative artificial intelligence (AI) is a powerful tool that can transform the marketing industry. Since the launch of OpenAI's ChatGPT last November, marketers have lauded generative AI's ability to create anything from copywriting to video production and even original music.  

Generative AI has been available for several years. However, the open-access ChatGPT has captured the public's imagination in a way its competitors, Google's LaMDA and Microsoft's Bing, have so far failed to do. When launched in November, it sparked many viral posts, drawing one million users in its first week. 

It is predicted that generative AI innovations could transform the entire global economy, leading to a 7% increase in the global gross domestic product (GDP)—nearly US$7 trillion.  

While creative and humorous uses of ChatGPT have captured the headlines, the marketing benefits of generative AI will come from behind the scenes. Today's consumers demand consistent, personalised, always-on customer experiences from consumer brands. They increasingly seek a quality experience when purchasing decisions behind the price and product quality.  

Therefore, brands must adopt a customer-centric approach by understanding and analyzing customer behaviour, which is the key to providing a personalized and relevant experience that leads to an increase in conversion rates, customer retention, and the creation of brand loyalists.  

Efficiency and instant satisfaction

By now, consumers are well-familiar with online recommendations across e-commerce sites and social media. However, advances in AI have made it possible for brands to offer customers more value than recommendations alone. 

Brands are using AI to take customer engagement to the next level by using AI to understand, anticipate and predict a customer's preferences and behaviour. With AI-powered optimisation, brands can personalize arrangements at every stage of the customer lifecycle, responding to text and voice. AI tools also allow a brand to gain information quickly and act immediately to meet a customer's needs. Crucially, this can be achieved at a scale of millions of customers.  

The ability to act quickly delivers the customer instant satisfaction and becomes an efficient method for securing revenue and returns on investment (ROI).  

Generative AI can help marketers analyse customer data and behaviour to create personalised recommendations and offer for each customer. This allows marketers to provide a better customer experience, increase customer satisfaction, and ultimately increase customer loyalty. 

AI can assist in the creation of relevant and engaging content that is tailored to a specific audience. Predict customer behaviour and anticipate their needs, allowing them to tailor their marketing efforts accordingly.  

AI tools can also act on historical data points to generate up-to-date recommendations. The deep learning algorithms ingest the customer data like affinities and behaviour to define recommendations. In addition, these algorithms dictate what content to send and choose the best time and channel to send messages to each customer.  

As technology becomes more sophisticated, more AI-driven interactions and omnichannel campaigns will occur. As a result, brands can leverage AI to stay ahead of their customers' decisions at multiple touchpoints, improving the overall experience.  

In time, generative AI chatbots should be able to respond to changing customer expectations and provide individualized experiences cost-effectively. So, while ChatGPT may create a brand campaign, it's up to marketers to use generative AI tools to deliver on it. 

Pankhuri Das is the demand generation manager for SEA and ANZ at MoEngage.