Experimenting with AI in Marketing
Along with most of you, I've been experimenting with AI. The one getting all the glory at the moment is ChatGPT, but there are a plethora of others. Let's face it, AI isn't that new - the handy completion of sentences or suggesting of search options I've been taking for granted for years.
I believe some of my job as a marketing leader, might eventually be replaced by AI. I don't believe a global moratorium will be announced and I am pretty sure we don't know where this is going and what use cases will emerge. For now I'm really interested in experimenting within parameters (more on that below) about how AI tools can help me increase efficiency, get more productive and do things I couldn't do before.
I thought I'd share some of the things I've been experimenting with here and I'd love to hear what you have had successes and struggles with.
Everyone has been playing with this one!
I've found ChatGPT super-helpful for writing content, prompting ideas, creating structure, summarising and rephrasing.
It still struggles with 'tone of voice.' The paid version has a number of pre-sets which I have recently started using. They appear a good step forward in terms of pre-setting the tone, but are still relatively generic. You can prompt the free version to use a specific tone.
ChatGPT (any AI) needs oversight from someone who understands the content and audience, i.e. it doesn't just take everything as true!
Beyond content, I've also used it to help create meeting agendas, draft policies, to research topics, suggest imagery, draft interview questions etc. etc.
Even when I don't use the suggestions, the exercise has often just kick-started my brain into a flow, which is valuable.
Video Editing Descript
I've always struggled with editing video - it's labourious work and I really value the skill set and patience of those who do this.
I'm excited about the opportunity to easily create video relatively quickly and easily. For me, this is a case of doing something I might not have done myself before. In the short-to mid-term, I will still use professionals for the more professional-looking video, but AI tools opens up a whole world of opportunities to create content for an audience in a different medium.
Descript has a free and paid version and I have experimented only with the free version.
It takes your video and transcribes it into text. Their differentiator is the focus on getting users to edit the text rather than the video itself. You can edit the video directly, but stage one is the text.
In one click, it removes all those "ums" and "ahs" and you can easily edit out whole sections to tighten messaging. By removing text, the corresponding video is edited.
I was also able to upload and intersperse my video with image clips and photos. You can also relatively easily change backgrounds so you are shown against a backdrop that is relevant to your video - such as a key point, a brand or logo etc..
I was quite excited by this and the results do show potential, but the reality was jolty and out of sync. I will go back again for another go.
Video Transcribing with Glasp
Transcribing from video using Glasp actually blew my mind with its speed.
I opened up a 3 hour video from YouTube and connected Glasp. The transcription was complete and on my screen before I'd moved my head from the video to the right of the screen where the transcription appeared!
It was also impressively accurate, albeit there were a few accent and tech-speak related errors but given the amount of time and effort I spend shouting at Siri at times, I am willing to give it a bit of leeway and thought it was impressive. Definitely would recommend.
Imagery using DALL.E
One of my personal pain-points in content creation has been finding appropriate images to go with the written content.
DALL.E is from the same Open-AI family as ChatGPT and is great fun to play with. I have used some of the images, but only when they are of inanimate objects, or a representation of something.
What's currently limiting is the representation of people (still a bit 'odd' looking) and its inability to take a word and embed it in the picture. My request for an image using the prompt "a realistic image of a cyborg creating a marketing plan" is shown here!
I like using people in images and am sure this will be usable pretty soon, as it has come a long way in even the last few months.
My prompt for "two people discussing code written on a screen while sitting on a beach wearing pink bikinis"
And adding "face on" is here:
You can see there are no actual bikinis being worn, the hands and faces are not realistic, even when I ask for "face on" - they aren't and overwhelmingly the representations are male.
This is a big red flag in terms of all that is AI - if the data sets that are being fed in have some sort of biases, then what we will get fed out will keep these alive - an ever-perpetuating echo-chamber.
What is Your AI Strategy?
I get to engage with lots of different businesses and have found it very interesting observing different companies take different approaches with AI.
Some are jumping all in, while others look on with distrust.
Most are experimenting, but in an ad hoc way. A small few have a strategy.
I thought it would be helpful to conclude this post with some suggested prompts to give you a framework. This is about experimenting, learning and protecting yourself and your business.
An AI Framework
What experimentation are we doing as a team?
What guidelines are we putting in place? Don't use AI for anything that has your IP or personal information in it.
Are the team clear on what they can / cannot use AI for?
What upskilling do we need?
Who is our internal thought leader & champion?
What do we know / not know?
What are we telling our clients through of our use of AI?
As an example, Hubspot showed this message when I logged on to create my newsletter.
Please avoid sharing any sensitive information in your prompts. To improve the product, HubSpot logs and stores your prompts, generated language, and usage metrics when you use AI content assistant. For content moderation purposes, HubSpot shares your prompts with OpenAI, and your prompts will be attributable to you. By using the AI content assistant in beta, you agree to comply with HubSpot's Beta Terms as well as OpenAI's Usage Policies and Sharing & Publication Policy.
Please share what you are doing, as this is surely a case of us all helping each other to learn and grow.