What AI Means for Marketers – Alex Vaidya CEO of StoryStream at CMA’s Digital Breakfast [VIDEO]

There are many misconceptions surrounding artificial intelligence. Many people think of machines similar to the baddies found in The Matrix. Others may picture robots exterminating the human race. AI is, in fact, the next great tool in communication.

Alex Vaidya, CEO of StoryStream, recently gave a talk featuring what AI can do for marketers, and it doesn’t involve robots. His presentation at a recent CMA Digital Breakfast delved into the revolutionary tools AI can provide, and how you can use those tools in your marketing strategy.

What is AI?

The first question Alex asks is, what is AI? AI is the next technological step to helping humans communicate. 90% of the world’s data has been created in the last 2 years. As marketers, we have reached the content crunch. What do we do? There aren’t enough hours in the day to help us navigate the massive amount of content we would need to analyse the relevant insights.

This is where Artificial Intelligence comes in here. AI is the new era of human communication.

Alex gives the example of a traffic light. A traffic light with no AI would stay on for 2 minutes, and switch off for 2 minutes. It makes no intelligent decisions and runs on a timer. If there is a pressure pad activated by a car, there is limited input to when the light can change. If we move to machine learning, where the light can use algorithms to predict traffic behaviours, the light can analyse the volume of traffic in a given time and predict its behaviour. Then we have deep learning (a part of machine learning) where the light would begin to model abstract predictions similar to a neural network. Basically, the light is able to (seemingly) make its own decisions. It begins to learn the way a human brain learns. Finally, we have AI, where the traffic light can have empathy, etc.

What is happening now with AI?

Visual Recognition: Brands have now started to think about how they can use visual recognition technology towards marketing. Basically, the machine can see an image, recognize it, and make predictions about it.

For example, Pinterest is training their AI to be able to recognize an image, find the Pin, and then the consumer can go buy it.

Language: We also have language, where the machines can understand the concept of language and use it to make predictions.

One example is Chatbox. Chatbox uses AI to answer basic questions. When they have a more complex question, it gets handed to a person.

Decision Making: Netflix is a great example of decision-making AI. Netflix technology can look at the type of videos you like, your friends like, ect, and make suggestions.

Data Analytics: AI looks at all the data different sites have and use it to make predictions. Sites used to have to be analysed separately, but by putting together numerous websites, AI is able to make more accurate and more specific predictions.

In short, AI cannot be creative, so it is taking care of the tedious things humans don’t want to do so we can spend more time on important developments.

How can you use AI in your brand?

1. Look for complex data challenges that can be solved with AI.

2. Be very clear on your desired outcome.

3. Make sure you know who you are working with. You want to be working with a legitimate AI company.

How you can use AI to solve a problem: Applying AI to unlock audience insights from social data.

If you can see what your audience is saying or doing, you can better market to them. It is possible to use AI to analyse how people are engaging with the world. It can tell you what kind of content to produce, before you produce it.

Social Tribes: See your brand through audience’s eyes. This term is based around the idea of sub-cultures and how people engage with different content.

Using AI, you can understand the context of a piece of content. For example, an Instagram post. You can analyse the usual things, like where the post was made, who the person is, the hashtags. But AI can also analyse the colour palette of the photo, the background, if they wearing branded clothing, etc.

Now imagine this on a larger scale. People who post gym selfies. People who use the hashtag Nike. You can see similarities of people who make up these different tribes. You can look at these tribes and identify demographics, and similarities in the images. This wouldn’t be possible with AI.

Marketers can go out and analyse all the content associated with their brand and branded assets. You can begin to group your content together based on these tribes. You can then look at your audiences, and identify the tribes within your audiences. You now know what content will appeal to these tribes, and how to target them.

Let AI Help You

The key point is that you need to use AI to delve into this huge amount of content, to find these insights, and understand when and where to market content.

By 2020, 50% of companies will be using cognitive computing in their applications. AI is not a question of if, it is a question of when.

For more on StoryStream and to learn more about how AI can help your marketing strategy, click here: http://story-stream.com/