A Marketer's Guide to Artificial Intelligence in 2019 [Infographic]

Marketers may realize they need to get a jump on this tech, but are likely to be unsure just where to jump in. This infographic should help enlighten anyone who has been waiting for the emergence of a perfect moment or product necessary for them to really embrace artificial intelligence that can help improve advertising and day-to-day customer care.

Fresh from the Consumer Electronics Show 2019

CES 2019 made a big deal out of AI this year, featuring several applications of the technology for both home and office. The much-anticipated yearly event also looked to the future of AI based on the rapid growth it’s experiencing right now.

Be sure to pay close attention to these areas this year:

• Voice search. AI-powered voice search is only growing in complexity and real smarts. Alexa, Google Assistant and Siri may be your future sales staff as they learn to not only reorder frequently purchased items, but to initiate and then lead customers through their buying journey.

• “Smart” everything. Sure, a refrigerator that’s smart enough to send a request to the market for more milk that’s then to be delivered when you’re home is pretty impressive, but what about a microwave that takes voice commands? Smart is everywhere, including on store shelves.

• Tech-forward is the way to the future. CES 2019 made it clear that tech-first companies are leading the pack in overall strength. Guidance provided by AI marketing platforms can help marketers get ahead with more data and analytics than they may know how to handle unassisted.

Digital Assistants on the Rise

Voice search is on the rise across demographics, with voice searches predicted to be half of all search traffic by 2020.

That’s no small thing, and the Amazon Super Bowl ad kind of drove it home with their “Alexa Fails.” Pringles’ Super Bowl ad went dark with Alexa, as she lamented not having hands, or a soul, before being asked to play “Funky Town” by her human companions.

Statistically speaking, smart speakers have a lot of human friendships these days, Pringles isn’t wrong about that. The market is still penetrable now, but may close rapidly as marketing success is found through voice assistants.

Here are a few related stats you should know:

• 1 in 5 adults in the United States have access to some kind of smart assistant.
• Smart speaker owners are 57.8 percent male and 42.2 percent female.
• Top location for smart speakers are: living room (45.8 percent), kitchen (41.4 percent) and the bedroom (36.8 percent).

As a result, marketers looking to craft advertisements for these voice assistant platforms should keep these tips in mind:

• Writing conversational content is key, it should flow naturally, like how you’d speak to a friend.
• Consider the likelihood of question-related keywords, since smart speaker owners tend to ask a lot of questions of their devices.
• Include structured data on each applicable site’s backend so you can track traffic and sales back to the source.

Don’t Forget the Bots!

Of course voice assistants aren’t the only useful application of artificial intelligence out there.

Chatbots are still gaining traction as simple solutions for repetitive or easily predictable situations. They’re certainly not going to replace humans in areas like customer service any time soon, but they can act as a more personal sort of automation that helps customers find answers to basic questions.

Customers love chatbots and if any bot could, they’d love their customers back.

These AI-powered applications can help almost any kind of business by:

• Automating basic requests and easy tasks.
• Giving customer service agents more time with customers that have complicated needs.
• Reducing costs, as businesses are expected to save $8 billion by 2022 simply by adopting chatbots.

It’s also clear that businesses are looking for more ways to implement customer service AIs. When asked, 80 percent of businesses said they want chatbots on their teams by 2020.

This strong preference could be at least partially influenced by successes documented in case studies that reported:

• $16.7 million in purchases facilitated by the HDFC Bank chatbot.
• 3 million messages to the Golden State Warriors’ chatbot in the first two months it was online.
• 130,000 daily active users during the first 14 months of the Wall Street Journal’s chatbot install.
• 15,000 manual interactions reduced to just two automated responses thanks to a collaboration between Microsoft and Instaply chatbot.

At this point, artificial intelligence is so deeply embedded in every kind of emerging marketing tool that it’s going to be difficult, if not impossible, to avoid. So why not just embrace it? All sorts of AI have interesting and potentially cost-saving applications ahead of them. The future is now and it’s coming in the form of a tiny program that’s making a great big impact.