Using AI to generate content enables marketers to craft engaging messages and boost engagement. Generative AI is becoming a mainstay in tools like ChatGPT or Facebook’s emoji library.
However, this type of AI will never replace human creativity and intuition. In fact, generative AI is a new stepping stone for innovation.
1. You provide the spark
As any creative will tell you, inspiration can be elusive. You can stare at the blank page, begging for the Muse to sing in your ear, but sometimes that just isn’t enough. That’s where generative AI can really shine (think of it as your own personal fire striker).
Generative AI is the branch of artificial intelligence that creates something new, whether that’s an image, text, or other media. It’s best known by its most popular tools, ChatGPT and DALL-E, which can create a variety of content in many different styles. These tools work by giving the user a prompt, which can be anything from a specific word or sentence to a certain type of image. Then, the AI creates a piece of content that meets or exceeds that criteria.
This is one of the most exciting and useful ways generative AI is being used, especially for marketers. Because they often deal with very short deadlines and a lot of repetitive work, AI can help them generate content faster and more accurately. For example, AI can write headlines, blog posts, website or email copy, and even whole pages of content in the form of outlines.
It can also create pictures with a similar look to that of famous artists. For example, if you give the AI program a picture of a bowl of fruit, it will likely create an eye-catching image in the style of Picasso. This is because the AI has been trained on billions of images, including some that are copyrighted by living artists, so it can often create a pretty faithful approximation.
However, this kind of AI can also threaten the livelihoods of some creators. For instance, some modders are using ElevenLabs’ AI text-to-speech tool to voice Skyrim’s Dragonborn, a task that would be impossible for them to take on if they had to pay professional voice actors.
Despite these potential threats, most creatives don’t believe that AI will ever completely replace human creativity. AI is still not capable of capturing the emotions, humor, and insight that makes up the vast majority of human creativity. However, it can supplement human creativity by providing new ideas and making execution super easy.
2. AI makes it happen
Generative AI is a hot topic in the tech world. It’s a type of machine learning that can produce text, images and other assets on command. However, these assets must be fed the right input to generate their best work. Otherwise, they might spout unintelligible gibberish or a work that’s offensive, biased or hateful. In addition, the resulting content might lack context and fail to provide the necessary background for its intended audience.
To avoid this pitfall, it is imperative to prioritize data cleaning and ensure that the model’s outputs are accurate. This can be achieved by establishing clear lines of separation for training, validation, and evaluation. It is also important to prioritize microservices architecture and modular design to enable the scalability of your generative AI solution. Moreover, you must also consider fault tolerance and load balancing to maintain a highly available and stable system.
Companies like Salesforce Inc (CRM.N) and Google parent Alphabet Inc are putting generative AI to work in their business applications. For example, Salesforce’s generative AI model ChatGPT can create a first draft of a sales-focused email or a PowerPoint presentation. CarMax has used it to summarize customer reviews to help shoppers decide what to buy at its stores.
The technology can also be put to use in the medical field. Generative AI can help transform MRI into CT scans or generate 3D models from 2D images. AI in Creative Process enables doctors to get a more complete picture of a patient’s condition without having to subject them to additional tests or expose them to higher doses of radiation.
Some of the most popular generative AI tools are image-to-text generators like DALL-E 2, created by OpenAI, and Bard, created by Google. Other examples are Midjourney, a popular art-generating program, and Lensa, created by NVIDIA. The technology can also be used to sculpt objects from textual descriptions. For example, if you want to generate a two-door convertible with white rims and black interior, all you need to do is type that into the program, which will then produce an image of the vehicle.
3. AI makes it beautiful
You can use generative AI models for everything from text to images. The quality of the output depends on how well the model is designed and matched to the use case. For example, the model can be tasked with generating an essay given a short text request. Or it can be trained to create photorealistic pictures based on a text description of an object.
The most famous generative AI application is probably ChatGPT, Microsoft-backed software that responds to prompts with customized content. Other popular programs based on this type of model include Midjourney, a program that generates paintings from textual descriptions of simple objects; and Dalle-E, another generative AI tool that allows you to produce various types of images with different styles.
Businesses are also relying on generative AI to help them work smarter and faster. For instance, Salesforce is deploying an artificial intelligence (AI) model that helps its sales team quickly create proposals and send them to customers, freeing agents up to focus on more complex customer issues.
Generative AI can also shave time off the creation of marketing content such as blog posts, social media updates and email campaigns. The technology is useful for reworking copy to improve tone and style, writing first drafts for articles or press releases, and making sure the content is relevant and valuable for its target audience.
This type of generative AI can also be used to produce high-quality video and photo content. In a recent project, Google AI created an app that lets you take a picture of a person and then replace their face with a celebrity photo. It was able to replicate the facial expressions and movement of the original image with remarkable accuracy.
The potential for generative AI to transform the way we live and work is exciting, but it’s also important to keep in mind the risks associated with this technology. AI can be biased or swayed by the language it’s fed, and it can sometimes create content that is indistinguishable from human-created material. This is a reason why experts worry that if AI becomes advanced enough, it could pass the notorious Turing test devised by British mathematician and computer scientist Alan Turing in 1950, allowing computers to act like people and communicate with each other.
4. AI makes it useful
There’s a lot of buzz around generative AI at the moment, with tools such as ChatGPT and DALL-E generating images, text, computer code and more. These types of generative AI tools are easy to use by prompting the software in plain language and can produce a wide range of content within seconds.
As a creative tool, generative AI is phenomenal for brainstorming – especially when it comes to coming up with ideas, designs and concepts. The tools can help to take ideas from inception to representation fast, and can be used by teams in combination with human insight to find the best solution for a specific challenge. They can also provide new ways of thinking about or approaching a problem and bring fresh perspective.
Generative AI can also be used to automate the tasks that are not a priority for your business, freeing up your time and resources to focus on what’s really important. For example, a recent Gartner webinar poll showed that 38% of business leaders cited reducing labor costs as a top driver behind their generative AI investments. The best way to understand whether this technology is right for you is to connect the tools with your key performance indicators and ensure that they are providing true value.
Some generative AI is already built into the products you use, for example, if you’re using Adobe’s Creative Suite, you might have access to a generative AI plugin called Firefly. Similarly, Salesforce has Einstein and Github offers Copilot, both of which are generative AI models. But the wider adoption of generative AI is only just beginning.
The ability for users to prompt software in plain language and generate a variety of different types of content opens up endless possibilities. It can be used to create, check and optimize computer code, write essays or emails, create and edit images and create poem lines and Excel formulas in seconds.
But the most exciting applications of generative AI are those that promote divergent thinking, challenge expertise bias, support idea evaluation and refinement, and get ideas to market faster. This is where the real value lies.
