By Amit Sanyal
Artificial Intelligence (AI) and GenAI are contributing significantly to marketing activities, bringing unprecedented levels of personalisation and customer engagement. According to a McKinsey report, GenAI could contribute up to $4.4 trillion in annual global productivity, and marketing & sales being one of the top functional groups could reap an estimated 75 percent of that value. The report also estimates that GenAI solely can increase the marketing productivity between 5 and 15 percent of total marketing spend, worth about $463 billion annually. Thus it is imperative for marketers to adopt advanced Marketing Technologies (MarTech) powered by GenAI to deliver differentiated customer engagement and gain competitive edge.
Data-Driven Personalisation and Customer Engagement
Both AI and GenAI can work in tandem to drive personalisation and enhance customer journey. By analysing vast amounts of data, AI helps marketers understand customer preferences better and tailor their approaches accordingly. This automated capability has led to the rapid adoption of AI-powered chatbots and virtual assistants that can interact in real-time with customers, providing a highly personalised experience. The new-age customers are becoming increasingly engaging online, forcing companies to quickly scale their marketing activities to interact with potential customers across multiple channels. The CMO Intentions study finds that nearly half of the marketing leaders see customer data collection and analytics as critical for enhancing engagement.
With GenAI’s promise to transform data into actionable insights, marketers view this technology as the next frontier to redefine customer engagement and drive competitive value. GenAI can address the rapidly evolving customer expectations which revolve around hyper personalisation, data privacy and security. A growing number of businesses in India are turning to MarTech tools powered by GenAI. Capgemini Research Institute’s latest report ‘GenAI and the evolving role of marketing: A CMO’s Playbook’, reveals that on an average, Indian marketers are allocating 62% of MarTech budgets to GenAI tools.
GenAI in Marketing: Unlimited Use Cases
GenAI offers unlimited opportunities for marketers to automate campaigns and create customised content. GenAI tools can be used to summarise lengthy articles and videos, create written drafts of presentations, personalise email interactions, and more. In media buying, it can suggest the most effective advertisement and media placement. AI can also optimise advertising spend through programmatic advertising. With its ability to analyse customer behaviour data at granular level, GenAI can interpret customer feedback and suggest product recommendations without any human intervention. GenAI is also increasingly used for market analysis. With precision, it can analyse competitor moves, understand latest customer sentiments, and generate new product concepts. Leading companies like Mattel, Kellogg’s and L’Oreal are using GenAI to analyse different types of user data available on the Web to identify new product innovation opportunities.
Limitations of GenAI for Marketers
GenAI comes with its own challenges. In the initial stages of development, it can be costlier as companies need to build the data from scratch to train the GenAI; but this is likely to be improved as it evolves over a period of time. Another worry is that the system could yield oblivious outcome if trained on biased or non-scientific data. Marketers have concern that tools like ChatGPT have several limitations and can never match marketing experts. Intellectual property concerns over GenAI content can arise, creating disputes over the ownership and copyrights. The biggest concern, however, is pertaining to the ethical and responsible use of the technology. Addressing this is crucial, so marketers need to take appropriate measures to ensure that the data they deal with is absolutely genuine and that its use never violates the laws of the country.
Adopting generative AI in the MarTech landscape requires a balanced and strategic approach. With India’s artificial intelligence market projected to reach $17 billion by 2027, the prospects for innovation in marketing are immense. However, it is important to address the concerns associated with the use of AI and related technologies so that the benefits of these technologies outweigh any potential disadvantages.
The author is EVP & COO – MarTech Solutions, Comviva. (Views expressed are the author’s own and not necessarily those of financialexpress.com)