From optimizing advertising campaigns and personalizing customer experiences, to predicting consumer behavior and automating routine tasks, artificial intelligence (AI) is dramatically reshaping the marketing landscape. Members of ELFA’s Communications Committee led an informative discussion of issues around implementing AI during the association’s recent webinar, “AI for Marketers: Embracing Analytics and Creativity.”

Session presenters Keara M. Piekanski, MBA, Director of Marketing Oakmont Capital Services and  ELFA Communications Committee Chair; Chelsea Jensen, MBA, Senior Employee Engagement Specialist, Sasser Family Companies; Kyle Mallinger, SVP, Marketing, Financial Partners Group; Kristi Schon, Chief Marketing Officer, Channel; and Joseph Vu, Sr. Vice President, Marketing, QuickFi by Innovation Finance USA LLC, shared real world case studies and success stories, uncovered the latest AI-powered tools and techniques, and provided actionable insights to empower attendees to harness the potential of AI in marketing initiatives.

More than 250 industry professionals registered for the September 28 event, which kicked off with an interactive poll about attendees’ usage of AI tools. The top response revealed attendees use various AI tools daily, followed by use of one or two tools to accomplish weekly tasks. The webinar, designed for all levels of familiarity with AI, included the following highlights:

What is AI? Generative AI is a model or algorithm that creates new output or content from data it is trained on. It is distinguished by three characteristics: its generalized rather than specialized use cases; its ability to generate novel human-like output rather than merely describing or interpreting information; and the approachable interfaces that help understand and respond with natural language, image, audio and video. Iterative AI’s ability to generate new content that is indistinguishable from human creative output and break down communication barriers between humans and machines reflect a major advancement with potentially large economic impacts.

Marketing leads adoption of AI. Over the last decade marketing functions have been implementing the precursors that allow for widespread organizational use of AI. Marketing’s core activities, regulation and natural gravitation toward direct customer interactions are uniquely well suited to benefit from AI. Having both the digital infrastructure and a direct connection to customers enables AI’s greatest use case in marketing and financial services.

Integrated machine learning. One of the most common AI applications used by marketers, machine learning can create large efficiency gains and inspire new tactics for go-to-market efforts and lead generation. However, it’s not a pre-built, stand-alone platform that is just installed; it’s constantly growing and evolving. Therefore, one of the biggest challenges is how you enable it to learn, and teaching it what to look at and what to understand. An advanced CRM platform will have elements of AI built in. Ultimately your technology, teams and strategy will determine what’s appropriate for how your group leverages this tool.

Potential pitfalls. AI is far from perfect, and there are pitfalls to be aware of and steps to mitigate them when creating AI-generated content. Factual fallacies occur with machine learning since it’s programmed with human input, so cross checking output with other sources is needed. It’s also not SEO-friendly, so adjustments must be made for tone or slant, keywords and optimizing for web use. For privacy and data protection, ensure your AI tool is reputable and not malware, and never input proprietary information since it can be shared with competitors and other external users. Machine learning bias exists which can show a preference for a particular demographic. Finally, AI generates homogenous content so human input is still needed to provide nuance and review.

Legislative response. There are currently no comprehensive federal regulations in place for AI. The White House has issued a Blueprint for an AI Bill of Rights, a list of proposed principles to guide the design and use of AI technology that protects the public, and would need to be enacted by Congress. At the state level, nearly 90 pieces of AI legislation were either enacted or proposed during the 2023 legislative session. Ten states included AI regulation as part of wider consumer privacy laws, and more states have proposed similar bills. The following map illustrates AI legislative action taken in the U.S. in 2023.

In addition to these highlights, the committee provided the following summary checklist to help guide adoption of AI in your organization.

• Utilize AI in a way that’s relevant and impactful for your day-to-day duties.
• Don’t be afraid to get started/try new tools/ask questions/dig in deeper. Tools are free or low cost.
• Be cognizant of “dangers” so you can mitigate them. But don’t freeze in fear.
• Prop-up your talented team members by encouraging them to enhance output through AI.
• Follow the legislation as it may impact your state and our overall industry.

A recording of the September 28 webinar, the slide deck and a resource guide of online articles and regulations on AI are available here.