Artificial Intelligence in 2023, part two 🤖 – Trends to capitalize on
Our ongoing series dives on trends to capitalize on in 2023.
Recently, I unpacked the first of several practical ways you can take advantage of AI this year. First, we covered AI-Assisted Creative and AI-Assisted Content Discovery. Then, I explained how I use Artificial Intelligence every week to help serve my clients and develop content like The Wave Report.
If you missed it, I’ve started an article that I will update as this series continues: Artificial Intelligence in 2023.
I will unpack two more ways you can utilize Artificial Intelligence in 2023.
Before I do, I’d like to share a way of thinking about artificial intelligence that I found helpful when I first was trying to wrap my head around AI several years ago.
Technology throughout history has been all about augmenting human ability and intelligence. We’ve invented machines that help us build skyscrapers, plant vast amounts of crops, do complex mathematical calculations, fly to space, and so on. But at the end of the day, all that technology was doing was taking human capability and augmenting it. Technology effectively acted as a power tool, enabling humanity to do more and faster.
Artificial intelligence is different. It’s able to do things that no human could ever do, and at a scale no human could ever achieve. In this way, artificial intelligence is less like a power tool and more like a colleague – a co-worker with gifts and abilities you don’t have. The key is learning to work with this colleague called “AI,” leveraging their skills and gifts.
20th Century: Technology as a POWER TOOL
21st Century: Artificial intelligence as a CO-WORKER
As if to reinforce the point, in a Wall Street Journal interview with Microsoft’s Satya Nadella this week, the CEO outlined Microsoft’s expanding investment into building AI into its tools.
Speaking at the World Economic Forum, Nadella cast a vision of using AI to boost human productivity. His advice? That people “embrace the new tools, rather than assuming they will steal their jobs, Mr. Nadella said, citing the example of computer-software developers who currently use tools to help them generate some of the code they write.”
“‘The best way to prepare for it is not to bet against this technology, and this technology helping you in your job and your business process,’ Mr. Nadella said.”
Microsoft Plans to Build OpenAI, ChatGPT Features Into All Products (WSJ Article and Video Interview)
How might AI help you in your job or your organization in 2023?
A recent report was more about AI-based tools to boost personal productivity. Let’s unpack ways you and your organization can use AI in 2023:
AI-Enabled Advertising
In the world of advertising promotion, AI can play a role in the following:
Identifying and targeting new audiences.
Segmenting existing customers to be more effective.
Personalizing content to maximize conversion.
Let’s take a look at each.
1. Finding new audiences using lookalike modeling
The primary way platforms allow advertisers like you and me to use artificial intelligence to find new audiences is through a feature most often called Lookalike Audiences.
Facebook/Meta describes lookalike audiences as “a way your ads can reach new people who are likely to be interested in your business because they share similar characteristics to your existing customers.”
The way this works typically is that you upload a list of existing audience members or customers, and the platform in question looks for people who “look like” the ones you’ve uploaded. In this way, you can expand your audience to other similar individuals.
Almost every major advertising company offers this feature for your advertising, including Facebook, Microsoft, LinkedIn, Instagram, TikTok, and Google – although Google has announced it will phase out this capability in 2023 to be replaced by a feature called optimized targeting.
💡 Takeaway: If you aren’t utilizing capabilities like this to target new audiences, it’s worth looking into and testing in 2023.
2. Segmenting existing customers to be more effective
The second way leaders can utilize Artificial Intelligence is to address the advertising adage “the right message at the right time to the right customer” (and, I would add, in the right channel). This is a little harder to use AI to do on a smaller scale, but there are tools with platforms like Hubspot and Salesforce that use machine learning to help with customer segmentation – selecting which individuals should receive a specific communication or follow-up.
Specifically, look for tools that help with things like lead qualification, lead scoring, or recommendation systems. There are also technology and marketing providers that use AI to power segmentation – for instance, the company I was with for many years, Masterworks, has been using AI in client fundraising campaigns with tremendous results.
When I talk about segmentation enabling promotion to be “more effective,” that goes beyond increasing response or conversion rates to reducing churn and lowering costs.
💡 Takeaway: CRM and other tools can be utilized to segment your donors or customers better and send the right messages to the right people at the right time, in the right channel.
3. Personalizing content leveraging artificial intelligence
To my knowledge, this is the most challenging type of advertising to pull off on a small scale. But most of us have experienced times when we were looking at a product or service online, and then we saw an ad or sponsored content, not just from that company, but for that specific item.
Companies like AiAdvertising and Persado have developed platforms that enable advertisers to utilize AI to target specific messages to specific audiences.
💡 Takeaway: Depending on the size of your organization, consider tools to personalize and tailor your promotions to individuals at scale.
The last thing we’ll cover today for 2023 is how to leverage AI to better serve your clients, customers, or donors.
AI-Enabled Customer Experience
There are a couple of ways AI can help enable and improve the customer experience.
Using AI-based Chat Support
The first, most interesting, and admittedly a little further-off trend is AI-enabled Chatbots. Chatbots have become more and more popular over the last few years. Still, most are simple applications programmed to answer straightforward technical questions like “what’s my account balance” or “what hours are you open tomorrow.” For example, we utilized a chatbot for a client a few years ago that provided timely and accurate answers to critical questions for thousands of people, and we simultaneously saved the cost of several full-time staff members. That was a huge win, but it still was a relatively limited set of questions and answers.
Where it gets really interesting is with new technologies like ChatGPT – an artificial intelligence-based chat engine that can answer seemingly endless complicated questions. For instance, check this one out, featured in a recent NBC News piece:
“I’m finding my biggest limitation to use it is *my* imagination!” tweeted video journalist Cleo Abram alongside a video of her asking the bot to “explain nuclear fusion in the style of a limerick.”
While there are some understandable concerns around this technology, it will be fascinating to see how organizations use it to serve customers.
How AI can help with maintaining relationships
Beyond chatbots, there are more practical ways AI can help leaders maintain good customer relationships. For example, tools like Google Workspace use predictive AI to send reminders to follow up on emails from a week prior. In addition, CRM platforms are starting to enable similar capabilities – triggering a suggestion to call a customer when certain criteria are met.
If you aren’t utilizing an integrated CRM platform that can track donors or customers across multiple areas of your organization, such as marketing, sales, and customer service, that’s the first place to look. The more your data is integrated into a single location, the more data AI-based tools have to work with.
Technology will never replace authentic human relationships. But it sure can help us humans with better ways to support those relationships.
Are you using AI in your organization or your day-to-day work?
If you have something you think readers could benefit from, I’d love to hear from you.
Next week we’ll move on to the next trend to capitalize on in 2023 – the Tiktokification of visual media.
Until next week… Surfs Up! 🌊
- Dave
Of Note – Links from Article
Artificial Intelligence in 2023 - Imago Consulting
Microsoft CEO on integrating AI - YouTube
AI-based Segmentation for Nonprofits - Masterworks
AI chatbot ChatGPT goes viral - NBC News
About the Author | Dave Raley
Consultant, speaker, and writer Dave Raley is the founder of Imago Consulting, a firm that helps non-profits and businesses create profitable growth through sustainable innovation. He’s the author of a weekly trendspotting report called The Wave Report, and the co-founder of the Purpose & Profit Podcast — a show about the ideas at the intersection of nonprofit causes and for-profit brands.
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