Technologies like ChatGPT will change how customers find your brand
Our CEO Mike Couch recently had a fellow marketing executive ask about ChatGPT and if he could give some ideas on how a Marketing team at an enterprise company could prepare for it. Since there’s so much buzz around artificial intelligence this year, we thought it might be helpful to share Mike’s response with our broader network.
We invite you to have a read through and get in touch – we’d love to hear your thoughts on generative AI and how your team is approaching it.
Mike Couch
CEO & Managing Partner
How’s it going? Thanks for the coffee last week, I can’t believe it had been so long. As promised, here is a follow-up on our conversation. The hype, buzz, and doom and gloom around artificial intelligence (AI) is pretty significant these days, so I’m happy to try and frame some of the immediate impacts I see for marketing groups.
Changing How Your Customers Find You
Large Language Models (LLMs) like ChatGPT are a type of generative artificial intelligence. They have recently made some rapid advancements and aim to be very disruptive over the next decade. Due to their advanced capabilities, they are poised to become a tool that people use to extract information from the internet. Enterprise companies will need to create roles to train and fine-tune these models to yield the desired results for their customers.
Traditional web searching like Google is likely to give way to these LLMs. The ease of using conversation rather than a search bar and results is very easy and desirable. These language models are already trained in hundreds of human languages and dialects. With existing text-to-speech capabilities, it is also straightforward to have a device interface with an LLM through spoken word. It’s just easier, faster, and better.
What Marketing Can Do Today
The best way to start preparing is to cultivate some skills on your team. Most traditional roles within marketing groups will benefit from learning more about how their jobs are impacted, both positively and negatively, by these new technologies. As a team, you can share those learnings and be better prepared to incorporate them into your new strategies. There are certifications and workshops available that you and your team members can leverage to get up to speed on some of these new AI-related concepts. Also, I encourage you to sign up and experiment with these new tools. Most of the new generative AI technologies are free or very low cost to use.
“Marketers will need to ensure their brands are well represented on new platforms
where consumers are searching for answers”
A quick aside about trust, truth, and facts. I wouldn’t worry about this too much right now. As with any search results, always do your fact–checking if you need to rely on a fact or result. LLMs are amazing at language, but they aren’t even attempting to be factually accurate at this stage. With hundreds of models, each will attempt their own levels of trust and truth in the future. We’ll trust which ones we want to and cross-check others. But this shouldn’t be a barrier for you and your team to start learning and preparing.
How Quickly Will All This Happen
Despite all the buzz, don’t worry – the transition from traditional search won’t happen overnight. Large tech companies have too much money being made by the existing search tools. But, over time, marketers will need to ensure their brands and companies are well represented on new platforms where consumers are searching for answers. You may have heard of “prompt engineers” – this is where they will be required. I’ll be writing an article on prompt engineers soon and will be sure to share it with you.
In general, viewing these technologies as an opportunity to gain a competitive edge and not just as a threat will be a smart approach for Marketing teams. A positive outlook will help enormously in getting you, your team, and your brand prepared.
Let’s get coffee again soon when I’m back in town next.
All the best,
Mike
Mike Couch is the founder and CEO of Couch & Associates. He has brought award-winning, innovative marketing technology solutions to hundreds of enterprise organizations for over 20 years. Mike was an early member of Eloqua, a space-defining marketing automation platform acquired by Oracle. He is an avid presenter, published author and recognized thought leader in the marketing technology space. As a natural problem solver, Mike is always working on the next solution.
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