Marketing, advertising and PR agencies around the world have been experimenting with artificial intelligence technologies for years now, and after many seasons of trial and error, some have discovered the best use cases for their firms. From conversational marketing to AI-based product suggestions, the potential applications of AI in agency work are virtually limitless.
Heading into 2023, as leading agencies are still figuring out new ways to improve workflows, streamline operations and communications and more effectively reach target audiences, determining how to incorporate AI is a big factor impacting their strategies. Here, members of Forbes Agency Council share some of the most intriguing ways they have seen AI leveraged in agency work, and why they find these particular applications so interesting.
Members pictured from left to right.
Photos courtesy of the individual members.
1. Measuring A Brand’s Attractiveness
AI is being used for ranking and recommendation purposes so that only the most attractive brands are recommended to consumers. It is crazy how good AI is at doing this. Most fascinating is that AI does this for every user individually—what is an attractive brand to you may not be an attractive brand to me, and AI is capable of this level of individualization. – Joschka Weltgen, Compado
2. Ensuring Brand Safety By Filtering Podcast Content
Podcast advertisers are increasingly concerned with brand safety. There are emerging companies offering brand safety tools using AI to filter podcast content and understand context and intent, adapting to trending topics and categories. This technology is going far beyond keyword recognition and paving the way for more prominent brands to enter the podcast advertising landscape. – Heather Osgood, True Native Media
3. Enabling Predictive Lead Generation And Personalization
AI technology can personalize website content and calls to action to more effectively drive leads. This kind of technology has the potential to fundamentally change how we approach conversion optimization—basing it on real-time data rather than the kind of broad generalizations we currently make about customer segments. – John Keehler, RUNNER Agency
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4. Generating AI Videos And Custom Avatars With Text-Based Scripts
One of the latest and most creative usages of AI is using text-based scripts to generate an AI video with custom avatars. The technology offers a vast number of avatar styles, and content can be produced in over 70 languages. You can create on-the-fly video presentations or explainer videos that can be used across all digital platforms. – Mario Mirabella, MSM Digital
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5. Tracking Customer Sentiment On Service Interactions
I’ve worked with a few tech startups. One was beginning to sentiment-track customer service interactions. Seeing how customer service data can be harnessed to drive sales, promotional strategies and new product research and development was very intriguing. It is a way to crowdsource ideation from consumers through an unlikely route. I think we are just scratching the surface on how we utilize sentiment tracking. – Monica Alvarez-Mitchell, Pulse Creative, LLC
6. Generating Digital Images From Natural Language Descriptions
Tools such as Dall-E2, created by OpenAI to generate digital images from natural language descriptions, have massively disruptive implications for creative studios and brands. Though it is still in its infancy, these tools present a way to ideate quickly and at scale. – Justin Buckley, ATTN Agency
7. Managing Customer Conversations Via Mobile App
The best AI I’ve seen helps brands manage the conversation with their customers through a brand’s mobile app. The algorithm can track and analyze the implicit and explicit behaviors of each customer at scale. This creates an unprecedented level of personalization. It can also inform campaign messaging, creative and operations. – Roger Hurni, Off Madison Ave
8. Generating Written, Image And Video Content
There are two pretty cool technologies that I’ve seen recently. First is Jasper, which creates marketing content via AI, and it’s actually amazingly good. The content still needs a human editor, but it’s a great tool to get started or for DIY marketing. Another is what Meta AI is doing with image and video creation—put in a few keywords, and the AI returns several concepts that are unique and often hilarious. – Jason Wilson, Strategy, LLC
9. Curating Mission-Critical Information For Leaders
Like everyone, CEOs and other business decision makers are inundated with information. Where others must be productive amid the chaos, leaders must make critical decisions. Tools such as Signal AI, which reduce the amount of information CEOs see to just what’s mission-critical, hold promise for helping spur business growth. – Mary Ann O’Brien, OBI Creative
10. Ensuring Diversity In Marketing And Ad Imagery
The use of AI image generators, such as Midjourney, is helping us target minorities in more effective ways. With AI, we are able to generate a vast array of stock photos representing people from multiple ethnicities, and we can control and fine-tune the output to closely match the target demographics (ages, ethnicities and so on). Stock media sites can’t match this flexibility. – Fernando Beltran, Identika LLC
11. Providing Direction On Digital Ad Layout And Content
AI will soon be providing direction on everything related to digital ad layout and content. AI systems can recommend everything from colors to the direction the person’s eyeballs point in the ad. We saw some interesting masked versus unmasked people data emerge during and after Covid. – Christine Slocumb, Clarity Quest Marketing
12. Creating Fresh, Inimitable Graphics And Image Content
Agencies that are leveraging the trend of AI-powered graphics are immensely interesting to consider. Clients and customers can smell stock image content from a mile away, so this emerging technology allows agencies to create fresh content that cannot be duplicated. The ball is just getting rolling on this new AI technology, and we are beyond excited to see how it evolves over the next 12 months. – Bernard May, National Positions
13. Predicting Media Trends And Transcribing Speech To Text
Marketing and PR firms are using AI now to help predict media trends, transcribe interviews and client meetings, convert speeches into text and monitor social media. By using language processing platforms, these agencies can “read” 2,000 news articles about a client’s industry in about 15 minutes, for example. – April White, Trust Relations
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Author: Expert Panel®, Forbes Councils Member
