19 July 2024 | By - Sudha Mariappan

While Artificial Intelligence (AI) has the power to even diagnose medical conditions, it sure has some flaws. Lately, AI has put on a storm in the marketing world. Business people are now grateful to have AI in their lives, as this has changed the game of engaging with customers.

But using AI has its own limitations. The contrast between AI being a potential threat as a human extinguisher and AI being the most powerful tool humans can use for problem solving and innovation is vastly noticeable. However, in some places, AI chat bots are helping people achieve their goals and reducing their efforts.

Despite the potential threat, AI has been resourceful in many fields. It has been ingrained so deeply in our lives that we cannot live without it in the near future.

However, AI is still in the process of improvement. Constant data feeding is required, therefore, the images or text production seems to lack basic coherence.

For example, I asked Gemini to create a busy cafe bustling with people. Instead of generating people, it generated just a cafe with no one inside.

AI still has a long way to go for capturing prompts in a precise manner and generating images and text according to that. This would make us come to a conclusion that even AI cannot do some things! Let’s see how AI gives us everything but falls short on some things.

What AI Can Do for Marketers?

AI is an incredible tool which can be used for research, create art, make financial investments and much more. With these highly intelligent computer models, you can not only do your work efficiently but also save your precious time.

Let’s see AI’s capabilities and how far they stretch till now.

Do finances and Make Investments:

Investors nowadays are jumping to AI-powered financial tools that can help analyse market trends, predict stock prices, and manage investment portfolios through thousands and millions of data that humans cannot match.

This can greatly help investors to make financial decisions, as AI can even point out hidden investment opportunities and help us point out risks. AI analyses the data from various factors, such as industry trends, inflation rates and interest rates. It can also come to a conclusion through company earnings reports, fund house’s performance, and the fund manager’s performance.

As each and every factor counts, AI gathers reports on these and helps us to make informed financial decisions.

Diagnose medical conditions:

AI can analyse large amounts of patient data, including MRIs, X-Rays and basic signs of humans such as body temperature, pulse rate, respiration rate and blood pressure.

With analysing medical history, lab test results and demographic information, it can come to a conclusion of a patient’s status.

AI can draw from previous data to form a conclusion on a patient's status and what treatment can be done for a cure. This helps medical professionals greatly, as they don’t have to go through all the reports, which can be time consuming.

According to the National Library of Medicine, AI will come up with more advanced technologies, such as quantum AI, to speed up the ongoing process of training medical professionals and start providing more diagnostic models. It will have greater processing power than the computers we have now.

It is exciting to think about the power of AI to help us more in the near future.

Translating Languages in Real-Time:

When you go for a solo travel vacation to another country, you’re definitely not used to the language. Unless you’re familiar with the language, translation is going to be tough.

Through AI-powered translation tools, you can get instant and accurate translations of spoken and written text. Which means we have come to a time where there will be no communication barriers worldwide.

Isn’t that amazing?

Self-Driving Cars through AI:

Tesla, the most famous AI powered self-driving car known to mankind till now, is a classic example.

Now AI is at the core of self-driving car technology. These self-driving cars can use sensors to perceive the environment, and through cameras they can scan and make decisions. Navigation is done through sensors which can improve road safety and reduce traffic congestion.

Help with personalization in marketing:

Marketers are at a huge profit with this one. Through personalised marketing, you can not only connect with your customers, but also AI can help you understand your audience better than ever before.

Tools like predictive analytics can identify potential customers that fit your brand and customise your message to their specific needs. This honestly is a god-sent feature that marketers can use to their advantage. You can reach the right audience with the right message at the right time, driving conversions.

Read Also: Here is how you can use AI in Customer Service to scale up business

Limitations of AI in Marketing

Although AI can be used for good, it definitely is not a magic wand for marketers. For an adept marketer, not only is it essential to know how to proficiently use AI, but also know about their limitations as well.

Lack of Human Understanding:

AI is excellent at processing data and identifying patterns, but it can fail to understand basic human emotions and behaviour. For example, without realising, AI might create something that a human may find inappropriate or even offensive.

AI does not have the ability to “read the room”. It can only make predictions and decisions based on what we feed them, it cannot read human emotions or predict according to what they might be feeling.

In this manner, AI may never not overtake this part of human ability, to process emotions. Emotions are a huge part of the marketing world as customers can only be attained through understanding their feelings.

AI can lack consciousness, the ability to learn from experience and feel the pain or joy of humans. It can also come to a halt when faced with unforeseen circumstances.

Reliance on Data Quality:

AI has a major drawback. It can only be as good as the quality and quantity of the data we feed. If the data is incomplete or biased in a way that it supports only one subject, then AI’s output will be inaccurate.

This can be an issue as customers might not agree with the output AI provides, which can lead to a change in customer segmentation, ineffective targeting and missed opportunities.

Creativity Constraints:

Originality is key and while AI can generate creative ideas, it lacks the true authenticity that only a human could find. AI generated content can be too perfect at times, which can be seen almost as fake.

AI generated content lacks personality and can often feel generic, while human written content can be felt, and be considered relatable. Humans have the perception of how the world works and they can bring their vision to text. AI on the other hand can only bring as much content it can bring from the resources already available.

Therefore, marketers need to use AI as a tool to enhance their creativity and not replace it.

Emotions and Empathy:

As much as emotions are important, having empathy is at the core of being human. Seeing someone needing help and aiding them is what being a human is.

AI cannot process the “empathy” factor, simply because it lacks human emotions. While it can analyse emotional responses and gather data to answer our question precisely, we don’t need that perfect answer.

For example, I asked Gemini whether it can understand complex human emotions, below is the response.

Truthfully, all we need is someone to understand our complex human emotions. Humans crave genuine connections, and as AI cannot truly empathise with us, it can be hard for us to build connections.

Marketing is all about creating emotional connections, and AI surely falls short in this area.

Interpreting Intuition:

Another complex human emotion we have is intuition. The gut feeling of predicting a situation is a tendency only a human can possess.

Marketers often have to be on their toes to make decisions. For that, having a great sense of intuition is very important. Most experienced professionals can make easy decisions based on their experience and instincts, which can be hard for an AI to replicate.

Therefore, marketers can take decisions through AI data driven insights, but it cannot be solely depended upon to take decisions.

Understanding and Interpretation of Human Expressions:

The way we nod our head to something instead of saying the word “yes”, or shaking our head when we say “no” are all non-verbal cues. Making decisions through body language is crucial for a skilled marketer. When you look through your eyes on how customer expressions are changing, you’ll be able to know what decision they will probably take.

This very thing is where AI struggles to accurately interpret human expressions and body language. Understanding non-verbal cues are essential for getting to know what customers need and their preferences.

Read Also: 14 Best Alternatives to ChatGPT: How Generative AI Shaped Us and All Businesses.

Implications for Marketers:

Marketers can use AI by understanding how its limitations can affect their business. It is crucial to understand these by leveraging the below points for your business.

• Human-AI Collaboration: Marketers should focus on using AI to improve their business, but not replace their business completely with AI. As the future of marketing lies in the collaboration between humans and AI.
• Data Quality and Ethics: There should be improvement for data quality and marketers must develop ethical guidelines for AI usage.
• Continuous Learning: Marketers should be updated on AI advancements and continue to develop their business by using those new tools and techniques.
• Critical Thinking: Marketers should not rely on AI outputs. Human judgements are critical for a decision making process as your customers are human, and they need someone who will consider their feelings.
To end with, AI can be very powerful based on how we choose to use it. It is a valuable tool for marketers, but it's important to recognize its limitations. Marketers can effectively leverage their business based on their human expertise and using AI tools, only if they understand the limitations and act accordingly. The future is here now with AI, and the success of any business relies on the collaboration between humans and AI.

If this information helps you to know about generative AI, you are always welcome to reach us at info@ontogendigital.com. Also, subscribe for more such blogs.

KEY TAKEAWAYS:
• AI excels at data processing but lacks human emotional understanding, making empathy and intuition crucial in marketing.
• AI's effectiveness depends on data quality, biased or incomplete data can lead to inaccurate outputs.
• AI-generated content can feel generic and lacks the authenticity and creativity that human input provides.
• While AI is a powerful tool for tasks like financial analysis and language translation, it struggles with precise prompt capture and human expressions.
• Successful marketing relies on the collaboration between human expertise and AI tools, recognizing and compensating for AI's limitations.