The Future Of AI Process Automation In Marketing – MarTech Series

In the past several years, marketers have embraced artificial intelligence technologies to automate a broad range of high-volume, data-intensive tasks from ad targeting to image manipulation. The next phase of AI in marketing has the potential to deliver a much larger impact as the focus shifts from the automation of single tasks to more complex business processes and workflows, and ultimately influencing marketing strategy.

Task automation using AI will continue to add value to marketers, but their benefits will be dwarfed by the intelligent automation of complex workflows.

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To understand the enormous difference between task automation and process automation, consider the evolution of automotive interfaces. In the early 2000s, we started to see basic voice automation in cars. The first systems leveraged simple AI to recognize commands that allowed you to set the temperature of the climate control system or change the radio station. Fast forward 20 years and your in-vehicle (or on-smartphone) navigation system will intelligently guide you through a cross-country trip, make recommendations to change your route based on traffic or weather conditions, remind you to stop and take a break, and constantly monitor systems and sensors within your vehicle and let you know when something needs your attention.

What would that kind of process automation look like to a marketing function? Imagine being able to define your marketing goals, metrics, and strategies and have an intelligent system provide guidance through your marketing journey, recommending your route (campaigns), alerting you when there is bad weather (your campaigns arent doing well, there are new competitive threats), making sure you get to your destination on time (your goals), and alerting you when systems are not performing at peak performance.

This analogy is a painful reminder that when it comes to operational execution of a marketing plan, most of us are still operating in the world of paper maps.

An automated process would need to consider many steps, including:

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AI task automation has delivered fantastic value to marketers around the world, but the promise of end-to-end process automation is much more compelling. By combining the efficiency of task automation with the broad impact of process automation, marketers can not only deliver marketing at scale, they can also deliver the right marketing at scale.

Bringing it back to the automotive navigation metaphor, its like the difference between going for a drive around town (and potentially getting lost), and completing a multi-stop road trip on time, while avoiding a traffic jam, and never running low on battery charge as your intelligent assistant helpfully guides you along the way.

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The Future Of AI Process Automation In Marketing - MarTech Series