While both GenAI and predictive AI are still AI, integrating the new creative arm with the predictive arm reap holistic benefits.
There is no denying that what ChatGPT and many other generative AI (GenAI) tools can do is remarkable.
However, businesses are businesses, and a tool is only as valuable as its contribution to business productivity and profit (in terms of “returns on investment” or ROI).
So, if the focus is to AI into ROI, what are the ways that GenAI can help businesses, especially when combined with other AI technology and solutions?
GenAI: opportunities and limitations
On its own, GenAI can serve as a tool to generate a wide range of content. In the past seven months, we have seen GenAI respond with human-like answers to questions, compose news articles and SEO blog posts, create images with simple text prompts, and even write programming code.
Many businesses across different industries have quickly adopted GenAI solutions to stay up to date with the trend and try their hand at delegating some tasks, such as drafting emails and copies, responding to customer queries, and creating presentations, to AI. These are the opportunities.
What about limitations? While the ability to generate quality content in mere seconds to a minute or two can boost business productivity, it does not help with decision-making. In fact, marketers using GenAI to create variations of a copy or image still have the difficult task of deciding which version to present and choose for their campaigns.
This is why GenAI alone is limited in what it can do for business users. Pairing GenAI with predictive AI, however, could be a real game changer.
Unlocking new potential
As its name suggests, predictive AI focuses on making predictions and forecasts. Predictive AI uses algorithms such as machine learning to analyze data and predict future events and outcomes. Generally, the more quality data, the better the predictions.
If a business wanted to know which potential customers were most likely to become buying customers, it could use predictive AI. If the business wanted to know which products would be the best recommendations for specific shoppers, it could use predictive AI too.
Now, with GenAI reaching the masses, predictive AI can be integrated with it to help optimize key marketing tasks. GenAI features can empower marketing teams to be more productive and creative when running campaigns, engaging with prospects, and answering customer questions and so on — and predictive AI will continue to help them make data-driven decisions based on existing and continuously improving algorithms and data.
For example, imagine that you need to write a short marketing copy about a new product that is launching. GenAI can, in seconds, generate multiple versions of the copy for you to choose from. But how do you decide? Since writing style, like most content, is highly subjective, how do you know which copy will perform the best? The answer is you do not: but predictive AI does.
By leveraging predictive AI, marketers can assess what words their target audience respond well to, and what tone they prefer. Predictive AI insights on these trends can guide GenAI tools to create copy that will lead to the most impressions and clicks. This way of combining the use of generative AI and predictive AI can unlock new potential for businesses.
Also, the two AI technologies can work synergistically in a loop: GenAI provides new data for predictive AI to train on, and vice versa. As one creates output faster, the other ensures the output is more effective. Simply put, the combination of generative AI and predictive AI creates content that can help humans achieve the best of both worlds.
Tomorrow’s personalized marketing today?
When it comes to AI, it is never easy to say what will be next. What we can say is that marketing will become even more focused on personalized experiences, curated content, and customer engagement. As GenAI and predictive AI technologies continue to advance and evolve, businesses could have the ability to generate an individualized marketing experience for each person. This would truly deliver on the literal meaning of the term “personalized marketing”.
