Since the launch of ChatGPT by OpenAI in November of 2022, many in the digital marketing world have been wondering how artificial intelligence might change our industry forever.

Will high-requested jobs in the digital field, such as developers or copywriters, be replaced?

Will artificial intelligence in the future be so good that we will not need a support team to answer customers’ questions via live chat or emails?

Will we be able to write blog posts, create images, cut videos, build sales pages and create content completely on autopilot?

After testing out many AI applications over the last three months, I believe the clear answer is yes: artificial intelligence will reduce and simplify the amount of work we have to do in marketing, and some people might lose their job positions … but not those who are high-level at what they do.

But before we get into that, let’s talk about what AI is and how it can be applied into marketing.

Defining AI

Artificial intelligence (AI) is “a branch of computer science that aims to create machines that can perform tasks that typically require human intelligence, such as visual perception, speech recognition, decision-making, and language understanding.” However, it’s important to note that AI performs best when it is given the right data and is prompted in the right direction by a human. This is why I believe the skill of “prompting” will be the most important ability for every marketer to master in the near future.

Prompting in AI refers to the process of providing the algorithm with the right data and guidance to make accurate predictions or decisions. For example, if an AI model is trained to recognize images of cats, it will perform better if it is given a large data set of images of cats to learn from, rather than a small data set of mixed images. Similarly, if an AI model is used for marketing, it will perform better if it is given accurate data about the target audience, such as their pain points, preferences and behaviors.

This is why, even if machines such as Chat GPT are destined to revolutionize the world of marketing and reduce the amount of work we have to do every day, they still need to be given the right amount of data and many examples of exactly what we need from them.

In the marketing field, for example, knowing the target audience is crucial for any successful campaign. AI can certainly help in that aspect by providing valuable insights about the audience, but it cannot replace the human understanding of who the target audience is. It’s important to combine the power of AI with human expertise to understand the target audience and create effective marketing campaigns. This is why I believe the marketers who are able to combine deep knowledge in their field with AI possibilities will be the ones most able to create extremely successful campaigns with less effort, 10 times faster than anyone else.

Coming Advancements

Right now, the most effective chat tools that use AI are able to write content, make translations, create images or logos, edit videos, and/or write strings of code. All of these functions are already pretty good, and many marketers are using them, but what’s coming in the near future? Where will AI go next, and how can we apply it to our marketing in simple ways?

I personally believe there will be four major uses of AI available for us in the next three-to-five years:

1. Automated Customer Support And Sales Teams

Just imagine an AI machine that’s been plugged into your website or CRM for a few months and has gained millions of data points from your customers’ questions and your support team’s answers to them. It should be able to substitute a support member almost completely, taking your customer care service to being active 24/7. It will obviously still need some supervision, but it should be able to reply to all the basic questions your customers or prospects have.

2. Content Creation

Just imagine your YouTube videos getting transcribed automatically and published on your blog as an article, or your voice being converted into a podcast and automatically uploaded to all major podcast platforms. The possibility of content creation will likely be close to endless once AI machines have access to our social media accounts.

3. Website Creation

Imagine telling the machine what kind of offer we have, what the target audience is, what colors we like and what tone of voice we want to have in our copy, and seeing our sales pages created in a few minutes. This could be possible very soon for web designers and copywriters.

4. Ads Optimization

Although this is already happening and all major social media platform are optimizing their advertising according to customer interests, this could be taken to the next level with AI. In the near future, there will probably be little need to enter interests and keywords—it would be the advertising platform itself that serves the right content to the right user.

AI can assist in tasks such as data analysis and automation, but it still requires human input and strategic guidance to be truly effective. Additionally, as AI becomes more integrated into the workforce, some jobs may become obsolete, and workers may need to retrain for new roles. However, experts in their field will always be in demand, as they bring unique skills and perspectives that AI cannot replicate. Overall, the future of AI holds great promise, but especially for those who learn how to use it the right way.

The following Matteo Pittaluga, from 2023 provides their research perspective HERE.