Etai Beck is the CEO and cofounder of Folloze, a B2B buyer experience platform.
On May 23, 2023, an image of smoke billowing from the Pentagon was accompanied by a news headline declaring an explosion. Seemingly from a verified Bloomberg news account on Twitter, the image went viral, yet it was later confirmed to be an AI-generated image. In response, the Dow dropped 80 points within four minutes, only to rebound once the image was deemed fake. This instance shines a light on potential danger caused by generative AI—danger that’s becoming all too common with increasingly high stakes as the most powerful technology introduced in decades proliferates unfettered.
With hundreds of millions of users worldwide, generative AI is getting smarter—and, honestly, this is scary because not all users will leverage it for good. Such solutions are great at sounding authoritative and “real” or good at sounding human, but they’re not. It’s vitally important to remember this, as there’s the potential for the technology to spiral out of control or to be misused, as in the case of the Pentagon photo.
At the same time, there are far more brilliant, creative and strategic uses of generative AI. In fact, I would argue that the best thing marketers and their organizations can do to be competitive in today’s world is to leverage generative AI. But to tap into the positives, we have to set boundaries to ensure that the viable and practical parts of AI are utilized in an ethical way. We must tap into our humanity.
Human-centric uses of AI enable deep personalization and content optimized for specific customers, but crucially, humans always remain in control. When this is done well, organizations combine the IQ (intelligence quotient) of AI with the EQ (emotional quotient) of real people to build trust and provide transparency at every touch point. This can result in a more satisfying experience for customers, which in turn positively impacts revenue.
The Role Of Humans
Taking a step back, the place where we run into trouble with generative AI is in its simulation of being human, seeming to have thoughts and opinions that are based solely on large datasets. Output is driven by algorithms rather than real emotion or human thought. This removes the capacity to self-regulate or weigh characteristics that may be more or less important to the issue queried. Additionally, AI models fail to account for social norms and etiquette, so with an absence of human involvement—or at least human review—AI can go catastrophically wrong or be manipulated for nefarious purposes.
Fortunately, when humans work in tandem with generative AI, such issues can be avoided. In such cases, something powerful, almost magical, happens because the emotional intelligence of humans is infused into AI outputs. Marketers can connect with their targets at a level that wasn’t possible previously.
Three areas jump out where there are real opportunities for human marketers to use AI to maximize program impact:
1. Leverage AI’s unique power.
AI’s greatest value lies in its ability to assess massive amounts of data in mere seconds (or less) and to apply it to solve problems, address issues or create something entirely new and appealing. It can tell us things we couldn’t know or understand on our own. Use it to get the information that matters specifically for what you hope to accomplish; use it to learn the “digital body language” of the buyer. By leveraging its power, you can speak to your audience based on their responses, actions and engagement and potentially increase the success of campaigns.
2. Curate an experience that keeps the human in the loop.
AI provides a great starting point for content—content that improves with each detailed prompt. The prompt is essential and requires real human thought. By pairing human ideas with AI’s ability to extract from data sources, there’s the opportunity to develop content that’s creative, interesting and tailored for exciting, novel experiences.
3. Create a personal connection with the content generated by AI.
Make content generated by AI your own—add your voice, humanize examples and maybe inject some humor. Dive a layer deeper. AI provides a baseline according to millions of data points, but it’s meant to be built upon. You can add details and specificity in a way that sparks an emotional connection to what you’re selling. Doing so has the capacity to shorten sales cycles, increase total sales and retain customers.
A Word Of Caution
As with any system that deals with massive amounts of user data, ethics are at play. Data privacy is a serious issue, and the misuse of data is growing more commonplace. It’s up to marketers to be good stewards of that data.
Marketers are all about data—we tend to want as much as we can get. But in today’s world, data can be easily compromised. By using some human intelligence and our moral compass to exercise restraint, we can mitigate exposing data unnecessarily.
Data captured and fed into an AI model should be used to shape and inform marketing programs for the betterment of the customer’s experience. Such a practice enables marketers to utilize valuable information but doesn’t put data privacy at risk. Humans maintain control and can add their own handprint to AI-generated content to develop something much more meaningful that resonates with targeted audiences. Within that construct, marketers must bring the heart and the emotional intelligence to generative AI if they want to maximize its potential while maintaining ethical boundaries.
Moving Forward
Human-connected generative AI is poised to be the ultimate tool if used responsibly. It can recognize patterns and insights and develop recommendations for actions, effectively making workers smarter and better at their jobs.
Most businesses see generative AI’s capabilities as opportunities to do more with less. Now it’s time to take the next step forward, connecting data insights with personalized content to ethically move through the pipeline at a new level of speed and efficiency—and in a manner that’s rewarding and enriching for customers.
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