Where does it go from here?
As generative AI tools develop, marketers see use cases beyond email. Salesforce, which is already using AI to help brands advertise via owned channels, views generative AI as a mechanism to increase the scale of various personalized content.
“Extending what’s available to the creative side of marketing is where we see AI going,” said Armita Peymandoust, senior VP of engineering, AI and machine learning at Salesforce.
Leonard Newnham, chief data scientist at digital advertising platform LoopMe, sees generative AI enabling far more than custom content. If bots were to be trained on reams of first-party customer data, he said, they could feasibly create new data, bolstering a brand’s understanding of their customers. This data, of course, would be synthetic, or artificial, but also consistent with real data.
“It’s using the same deep-learning technology as ChatGPT, but just training it in a slightly different way,” he said.
Related: See how ChatGPT would write Super Bowl ads
As the capabilities of generative AI grow with more testing, so too will its role within targeted advertising. Emails with custom text could soon turn into emails with custom images, audio files or videos. As shown by tools like DALL-E 2 and Midjourney, these productions can be highly specific, which is surely an advantage to marketers aiming to serve consumers relevant and interesting experiences.
Blueshift is already looking into how to integrate more mediums into its own tool, said Jenkins. As of now, the platform allows for only text-based personalization, such as email subject lines and mobile app messages.
Zumper would benefit from a multimedia approach, said Middleton. But even before this is possible, he is looking forward to the developments in specificity for what is already available.
“Step one is the generation of content for cohorts, but step two is to automatically tailor content, on the fly, to individuals,” he said.
