Dan MoyleGenerative AI is everywhere.
It’s not new. Grammarly has been giving suggestions for a long time.
But it’s “shiny and new” right now as tools like HubSpot bake it into many of its features and tools.
With the new obsession, comes the question, “Should we use AI?”
The Good
First, the good. Overall, I’m pretty optimistic.
AI and AI tools can have a significant, positive impact on how we grow our businesses in marketing, sales, and service.
Data collection and analysis is a major strong suit of AI. We can use it to sift through mounds of information that can then offer us simple distillations of data, more complex analysis, and even a back-and-forth of asking deeper questions, prompting us to think of new ideas.
Another pro is predictive analytics. You can use AI to predict future behaviors and trends based on historical data. This can help you anticipate changes in buyer needs and adjust your growth strategies accordingly.
Here’s a third positive impact AI can have on our businesses: Small improvements based on data. Whether inputting a full email to ask for editing help or generating a table of blog post titles and their summaries, we can use generative AI to help our writing be more effective and efficient.
The Bad
What can go wrong with AI? Where should we be worried?
These are great questions the pragmatic clients we work with ask us.
As you can tell, AI and AI tools offer numerous advantages. However, it’s still relatively new and there’s a lot we don’t know.
It's essential to use them responsibly and ethically.
Businesses should also validate AI-generated insights with human expertise to ensure that the output reflects the nuances of the human experience.
While AI can offer many benefits, there are risks and challenges associated with its use. Here are a few to consider.
Data Privacy Concerns: Businesses may use AI to collect and analyze vast amounts of customer data to create buyer personas, drive customer interactions, and manage the buyer’s journey. In doing so, they might inadvertently infringe upon individuals' privacy rights or violate data protection regulations, leading to legal and reputational issues. Not good.
What about bias and discrimination? AI algorithms can inherit biases present in the data they are trained on. If the training data is biased, AI-generated buyer content may perpetuate stereotypes or inadvertently discriminate against certain demographic groups, leading to ethical and even legal problems.
Inaccurate Predictions: While AI can make predictions about customer behavior, it is not infallible. A worst-case scenario could be that you make significant business decisions based on inaccurate AI-generated predictions, leading to financial losses or missed opportunities.
The Ugly
One of my favorite things to do with my family is to “worse-case scenario” situations to help prepare us for the “what ifs” of the world and ease anxiety.
Let’s do that now when it comes to AI.
Over-reliance: A worst-case scenario could involve you relying too heavily on AI-generated output without human validation or critical thinking. If the AI algorithms have flaws or biases in their data sources, their answers may not accurately represent the real world you’re working in.
Loss of Human Touch: If we rely on AI too much, we face loss of the human touch in marketing, sales, and service. Customers may feel alienated or disengaged if they perceive that interactions are entirely driven by automated algorithms rather than genuine human understanding.
Customer Mistrust: If customers become aware that their data is being extensively analyzed and used to create highly personalized marketing materials, they may become wary of sharing information with companies, leading to a breakdown in trust.
To mitigate these worst-case scenarios, I encourage you to approach the use of AI in your business growth plan with caution. Maintain a balance between automation and human oversight. It's crucial to regularly validate AI-generated insights with real-world data and human expertise and prioritize ethical considerations, privacy, and transparency.
The Plan
Now that we’ve thought about AI, what’s next?
The plain truth is this: If you ignore AI you’ll get left behind. No one wants that when it comes to business growth.
However, going into it with knowledge and a critical eye - that’s important.
A few places in your marketing and sales to consider using AI:
Email subject lines. Using AI to create better email subject lines can help with open rates and engagements.
Meeting notes. Summarize and analyze meeting notes you and your sales team have with clients. Look for patterns, common phrases, and action items.
Time management. Some uses of AI might not even cross your radar. Here’s one for folks who want to learn, but don’t have time to listen to full podcast episodes. Did you know you can take a podcast transcript, feed it into an AI chat engine, and ask it to summarize the episode with the top three points in under 200 words? It’s like the old Cliffs Notes for books we never used for book reports…
Customer sentiment analysis. Feed all your reviews, customer feedback, and survey results into a tool like ChatGPT and ask for a summary. Look for patterns. Ask for a “tone of voice” report on what people are saying about your brand. This can help you empower your customer service and success teams to lean into their strengths and build on their areas of improvement.
There are four ideas to get you started thinking about AI tools in your marketing, sales, and service teams.
Let’s grow smarter, together.
Read More in the Series
Is the Generative AI Revolution Like Robots in Manufacturing?
Harnessing the Power of Generative AI in HubSpot: A Quick Guide