ChatGPT poses an existential crisis for marketers

Welcome to my first column for MarTech, the place I’ll instantly and publicly admit I’m struggling by means of an existential disaster that started on November 30, 2022…

A full-blown, real-life, mind-bending, core-gripping conundrum, the type that causes an individual to instantly reposition or curl up within the fetal place. I name my quandary existent-AI-lism. 

I think about that almost all entrepreneurs have been feeling the identical since that fateful day when OpenAI launched ChatGPT and we went from imagining what AI might do to seeing what it’ll do, to and for our career.

Or as I prefer to name it, the day Skynet despatched the Terminator. 

Dig deeper: AI in marketing: 7 areas where it shines and struggles

AI is okay — and it’s simply getting began

Over the previous 12 months, we’ve seen glimpses of how AI might influence our artistic career and advertising and marketing world. Frankly, it’s been enjoyable – like a go to to Jurassic Park earlier than the dinos found out the fences aren’t electrified. 

Admit it, you’ve created handsomer and extra heroic variations of your self with Lensa, which makes use of AI to generate photo-realistic photos like my headshot. 

Or used the extra clever and attention-grabbing Midjourney, which in just some minutes created the AI-inspired customized paintings for this column’s hero picture.

However whereas AI-generated selfies are actually intriguing and enjoyable, they rapidly grew to become quaint in comparison with the brand new AI-driven, internet-searching, info-generating reply engine that’s ChatGPT, essentially the most spectacular and heralded of this primary era of AI-generated, conversation-driven, language-based know-how.

I admit, I really feel threatened by its unprecedented functionality to reply to user-generated, pure language queries with practically instantaneous content material creation. However I really feel when contemplating it as a research and content curation tool.

I don’t suppose it’ll exchange us entrepreneurs, strategists, planners or creatives within the rapid future. That shall be Terminator 2. No, my disaster comes from considering it’ll trigger most individuals, executives, purchasers and managers to suppose it could actually exchange us. Right here’s why.

I requested ChatGPT the next query: 

“Give me a 500-word article concerning the moral and sensible implications ChatGPT and AI-driven content material creation can have on advertising and marketing, entrepreneurs and promoting companies. Fashion is informal however sensible with slightly little bit of wit.” 

Right here’s what it “contemplated” and “created.”

ChatGPT and different AI-driven content material creation instruments have the potential to revolutionize the advertising and marketing and promoting business. On one hand, they provide a stage of effectivity and personalization that was beforehand unattainable. However however, they increase plenty of moral and sensible considerations that have to be thought of.

From an moral standpoint, one of many largest considerations with AI-generated content material is that it might be used to unfold misinformation or propaganda. As a result of the algorithms behind these instruments will not be all the time clear, it might be tough to hint the supply of false data and maintain these accountable accountable. Moreover, there’s a threat that AI-generated content material might perpetuate biases which can be constructed into the info units it’s educated on, resulting in additional marginalization of sure teams.

One other moral concern is the potential for AI-generated content material to displace human staff. As these instruments change into extra superior and extensively adopted, there’s a threat that they may exchange jobs which have historically been finished by copywriters, entrepreneurs and different artistic professionals.

From a sensible perspective, there are additionally plenty of considerations that should be addressed. One of many largest challenges with AI-generated content material is guaranteeing that it is top quality and that it aligns with a model’s total messaging and tone. There’s additionally the query of easy methods to measure the effectiveness of AI-generated content material, as it might be tough to tell apart between what has been generated by a machine and what has been written by a human.

Regardless of these considerations, there is no such thing as a denying the potential that AI-driven content material creation instruments like ChatGPT have for the advertising and marketing and promoting business. For one factor, they can be utilized to generate extremely personalised content material that’s tailor-made to particular person customers. This may be significantly efficient in the case of electronic mail advertising and marketing, social media promoting and different types of digital advertising and marketing.

Moreover, ChatGPT and different AI-generated content material instruments might assist to enhance the effectivity of the content material creation course of. By automating sure duties, comparable to writing product descriptions or creating social media posts, entrepreneurs can spend extra time on higher-level duties like technique and evaluation.

In conclusion, whereas ChatGPT and different AI-driven content material creation instruments have the potential to revolutionize the advertising and marketing and promoting business, in addition they increase plenty of moral and sensible considerations that have to be addressed. These considerations embody the potential unfold of misinformation, displacement of human staff and the necessity to make sure that the AI-generated content material is of top of the range and aligned with the model’s messaging. Regardless of this, the potential advantages are simple, comparable to the power to generate personalised and environment friendly content material, it could be as much as the business and society to search out methods to mitigate the problems and make use of the advantages.

Dig deeper: When I asked ChatGPT to write an article about ChatGPT

Spectacular outcomes, simply not insightful solutions

So, what do you consider ChatGPT’s response and duplicate above? Right here’s a touch — it’s tremendous.

Now I’ll be the primary to confess, it’s fairly spectacular when you think about it was machine-driven in mere seconds. I imply, like click on, tick, growth. 

Thoughts-blowing? Sure. 

Time-saving? Undoubtedly. 

However job-ending? Not but. 

That’s as a result of after choosing my jaw up off the ground and rereading it, it feels prefer it was written by a highschool pupil who spent 10 hours googling the topic, copied and pasted content material from their high search pages right into a Phrase doc, wrote an an identical intro and conclusion, then congratulated themselves on their obviousness. 

At worst, you may say these AI-driven texts don’t yield helpful insights or related outputs as a result of they’re contextually void of my intent and emotionally thoughtless of the viewers’s wants. And I’ll concur that’s true. 

At finest you may say, however isn’t that simply tremendous? Nicely, tremendous isn’t ok after we know that our audiences, consumers and prospects need manufacturers to make them really feel understood, heard, thought of and valued. 

With out people actively sculpting and shaping AI, it could actually solely generate “ok.” And as everyone knows, “ok” ends in artistic content material that hardly causes folks to react — and fairly often to reject. Simply ask Marvel. 

Don’t get me improper, I’m in awe of a software that out-googles Google in its capacity to scour the web to contextually discover manage and generate related and relevant content material in seconds versus what may take me, my strategists or copywriters’ hours or days to search out and assemble. 

Perhaps that’s why Microsoft invested $10B in OpenAI for Bing. It’s not simply an progressive different to look — it’s the way forward for search, a more practical place to begin for querying and a shortcut to synopsis. 

So can AI-driven instruments like ChatGPT generate precious insights and work on their very own with out us serving to to assemble data, reply questions and generate outputs just like the modern-day blacksmiths of manufacturers that we have to change into? 

Something that condenses time to data, time to manufacturing and time to market is a advertising and marketing benefit. However extra necessary than the output for these AI engines is the enter, which presently nonetheless depends on an individual who can suppose critically and creatively about the issue to be solved and the folks to be affected. 

Solutions aren’t the one reply to advertising and marketing. Nice advertising and marketing all the time begins with asking higher questions. That’s the place the important considering and essential work will get finished.

Nice advertising and marketing takes intelligence that AI doesn’t but have and nonetheless makes us people a obligatory a part of the formulation for breakthrough work. As a result of with out us, with out our inquisitiveness, with out our want to hook up with others, with out our innate must push additional, we simply get lazy inputs and apparent outputs from AI. 

And hold this in thoughts, our consumers aren’t lazy. They’re doing their diligence, their analysis, their comparisons, their consumption — and now they’re doing it with AI condensing their search, consideration and comparability course of. In the event you don’t need AI to make the selections about the way you present as much as them, you’ll nonetheless must spend money on creativity. In insights. In concepts. 

One in all my copywriters right this moment shared that she used ChatGPT to mainly write a six-page place paper in quarter-hour. She shook her head and mentioned, “That might have taken me three days to search out all that data and manage it.” 

I instructed her, effectively now you’ve got three days to think about what to do with it and what’s subsequent for the consumer. And to me, that’s the worth. 

Time is the worth. No extra legwork, no extra ready, no extra questioning what and the place the knowledge we wish exists. With AI, we change into bionic, enhanced and accelerated. For an important issues, AI enhances us, not replaces us. We change into the Terminator.

Happily, ChatGPT and different AI-driven search/analysis/content material creation instruments gained’t but trigger our career’s extinction in the best way that the asteroid worn out the dinosaurs.

However much more lucky for us, it’ll set forth a series response that can change our career, accelerating profound progress in the best way that steam engines, vehicles, electrical energy and the web have finished earlier than — besides quicker than any of these. 

We might lose some jobs and menial duties to AI, however I don’t suppose anybody misses elevator operators or stagecoach drivers anymore and so they gained’t miss writing 30-word social posts both. 

So, welcome the Terminator into your work and firm workflow or put together to “hasta la vista, child.”