What is really going on with genetic artificial intelligence and marketing?
We wanted to know, so we went straight to the source and asked.
Not surprisingly, genetic AI is said to be happening a lot—73% of companies are using genetic AI in their marketing campaigns, according to Statista. CapGemini says nearly 60% of organizations are implementing or exploring the use of genetic AI in marketing.
Last week, Accenture announced it was working with Adobe to develop solutions to “help organizations create personalized content at scale and accelerate the transformation of their content supply chains.” Andreessen Horowitz released research that shocked them about changing attitudes about budgeting and planning for building artificial intelligence.
But all this doesn’t really tell us what’s going on with genetic AI and marketing. So instead of refining our prompt, we went to Robert Rose, CMI’s Chief Strategy Officer, for his take. Read or watch this video:
Lots of genetic AI equals lots of use cases
It may feel like everyone is moving much faster with genetic AI than you and your brand. But is this the truth?
Well, take a breath. It seems like there are many use cases, but they are not very useful.
A business going to technology provider with over 500 use cases for its implementation Any Technology isn’t just useless. it is counterproductive.
Andreesen Horowitz, better known as A16z, released research that surprised them – budgets for genetic AI are skyrocketing. They found:
- Promising results from genetic artificial intelligence experiments have prompted companies to increase their budgets two to five times higher this year than last year.
- Leaders are reallocating AI investments from last year’s “innovation budgets” to more permanent line items in IT, business units and product research and development.
- The last six months have seen top-down mandates to find and develop productive AI solutions.
Okay, let’s take a breather.
A16z apparently does some content marketing. He has made at least 20 productive AI investments, including leading a $400+ million Series A round for Mistral AI, OpenAI’s European competitor. Of course, A16z is evangelizing about genetic AI saving the world. They need businesses to feel the urge to spend millions of dollars.
Click through all the headlines, research reports, case studies, etc., and you’ll find plenty of “we believe” statements about genetic AI: We think we’ll spend more. We believe it will save the number of employees. We believe it will transform the marketing industry. We believe it can save the planet.
Genetic AI has a lot of hype people. I do not mind that. This is at the heart of great marketing. But marketers who might use genetic AI would do well to remember Coach Taylor’s words from Friday Night Lights, “Pure hearts, full of hearts, they can’t lose.”
Don’t believe all the hype
Consider a different case. Pause all corporate technology change initiatives.
I see more tech companies, consultancies and brands taking a generally slower approach to business. Growth at companies like Accenture and others has slowed considerably. Research shows that IT-related budgets are also down.
Perhaps the real story of the integration of genetic AI is much slower.
Over the past six months, I’ve asked my network, clients, training participants, and colleagues about how they’ve used genetic AI. So far, I have 235 unique use cases for genetic AI and content and marketing. Most are creative and interesting. I can see the price. But some of them make me go, “You could Do this. But it is that precious?
As I said, genetic AI is not a strategy. It is an amazing, transformative innovation that can be applied to a strategy. In marketing, it’s a new ability to do something you couldn’t do without massive human effort, or something you can now do faster or more efficiently.
Why is this distinction important?
It explains why companies have not rushed to prioritize productive AI applications across the enterprise. They talk like they’re in a hurry, but people don’t even know what “enterprise-level productive AI” looks like.
Realize the real lesson is this
Whether you’re a business of 100 or 10,000, genetic AI takes time to understand. If your organization has a change-fatigue mindset or is still struggling with all the changes from the pandemic, no one will be in a rush to take on the BIG CHANGE project of genetic AI.
The lesson is this. If senior leadership is pressing you or your team about how generative AI can create efficiencies, add capabilities, or protect your competitive edge in marketing, don’t ask for the budget to acquire all the models so you can create 500 use cases.
Ask senior management for a budget for the change management necessary in the marketing and content functions to create a new strategy. You can then assess the priorities for genetic AI use cases and the budget for the technology required to do so.
Make the case for how you change with technology. Don’t list all the ways technology will change you.
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Cover image by Joseph Kalinowski/Content Marketing Institute
