Request a free audit
Specialising in Digital positioning and marketing, we tackle challenging questions that yield tangible value. By the end, you’ll receive actionable tips ready for immediate implementation. Take advantage of our complimentary, no-obligation complete audits.
Social media audit Problem definition workshop ISO/SOC readiness
The role of AI in content generation
Computers have come a remarkably long way since Alan Turing first tinkered on what is considered the world’s first computer back in the 1950s. In just under 70 years humanity has embarked on a few shifts from analogue to digital, binary to code, and chunky machines to sleek and sophisticated smartphones. We now live in a digital world with multiple channels of information and activity, with big data being one of the most valuable assets in the world.
The world is currently experiencing a content supernova in which AI is a new major player. Each day, consumers expect a level of personalised experiences during every digital interaction, on all platforms. Marketers are under enormous pressure to create more content at breakneck speed and deliver more campaigns to keep up with the growing demand. A large proportion of global marketers have had to increase their content generation ten times over to support the additional channels popping up seemingly overnight. This level of complexity is driving volume and associated costs, and with tens of millions of consumers requiring content on-demand each day, creating assets manually is no longer becoming an option.
Can we automate content marketing?
AI helps marketers to focus more on users and take care of their needs in real-time. The mounds of data received from algorithms makes it easy for marketers to identify the type of content to target, to whom, and through which channels at which time. AI helps create personalised experiences that users respond favourably to, making them more likely to purchase what you have to offer.
Automated creative
AI automates the mundane, repetitive tasks involved in producing content, such as content discovery, curation and publishing. And it is doing it extremely fast at high volume and with high production quality. Machine learning algorithms are enabling marketers to make sense of overwhelming amounts of data and deliver better customer experiences.
Robot writers
Much to this copywriter’s playful annoyance, AI has tried its hand at writing content. From sci-fi scripts to prose, and even textbooks, AI copywriting is helping us churn out simple and direct ideas into words. Carefully designed algorithms now automatically generate written content for simple stories like news headlines and sports reports.
AI content generation business Zyro allows marketers to easily create written content using AI. Their banner copy (presumably created by its own algorithm) reads:
“AI writer is a powerful content-generating tool that will cut out weeks from your website building process. All copy is SEO-friendly and tailored to your brand, so you can look your best online.” – Zyro, content generation software
There are numerous AI-generated content writing tools available on the internet and it looks like they will multiply at a prolific rate in years to come — it’s time this copywriter learnt how to code.
Artificial assistants
Although chatbots are nothing new in the world of tech, their role remains significant in the digital world. We’ve written about the power of chatbots in all industries extensively on our blog, so we won’t go into the granular detail of how they work and save time. What we will do is point out how marketers are using chatbots to boost sales through customer interaction. Chatbots mimic human conversation and are used to assist users throughout their user journey.
Facebook Messenger chatbots are by far the most popular and affordable chatbots available and they interact with users via conversational messaging. These bots send promotional content to users at various touchpoints using algorithms and machine learning. Each line of chatbot conversation is mapped and created by a team of human copywriters (the real heroes here) and aim to guide users to a sale in as few clicks/swipes/interactions as possible.
Custom algorithms
With the power of machine learning, users are serviced with personalised content which improves with each interaction and iteration. AI charts every click, every interaction users have on a site, and gather detailed information of each user in order to create bespoke content for each of them. Famous examples of this are Netflix and Amazon’s recommendation algorithms. Marketers use AI and machine learning to sift through the enormous amount of user data to hone in on what each user wants, and algorithms decide which promotional content to show to each user.
Apart from e-commerce, personalised content can reach users in most digital experiences, including news and weather services. By learning more information about users (geography, ethnicity, etc.) news applications and websites can promote more relevant content. Algorithms synthesise big data to assist marketers curate content in order to decide what gets shown to whom through the various channels of targeted marketing.
Conclusion
AI-powered content generation is on the rise and marketers are being rewarded with its efficiency at scale. Humans should not fear the growing capabilities of AI within the marketing world, but rather embrace it as it alleviates time previously consumed with repetitive tasks so creatives can focus on more important things. AI shows its trump card by helping marketers better understand the needs of their audience so that they can streamline sales. For now, there is no substitute for human creativity and problem solving using EQs, which fundamentally makes up most marketing processes.
Paula Ferrai
Working Machines
An executive’s guide to AI and Intelligent Automation. Working Machines takes a look at how the renewed vigour for the development of Artificial Intelligence and Intelligent Automation technology has begun to change how businesses operate.
