Data and AI for Marketing: Opportunities for Enhanced Business Growth

Capital Markets CIO Outlook | Friday, April 19, 2019

Netflix helps subscribers to watch a movie through the AI-backed recommendation algorithm. Amazon allows shoppers to decide what to buy via an AI-based algorithm. Uber uses an AI location algorithm to enable a customer to use a car.

Brands are developing, partnering to build, and also integrating AI into their tech heaps to get better at what they do. For instance, Sephora’s bot helps the customers in making purchases with preferences and then follows up with specific product information.

CamFind lets customers snap a picture of something in the physical world, and get information related to it. For instance, if a customer wants to see a poster for a movie, CamFind will show movie recommendations, times, and locations, simply by snapping a photo.

Increasingly, people are becoming more aware of their health and nutrition. UnderArmour has leveraged IBM Watson’s AI to create personalized training routines and nutrition information that provides end users with timely, evidence-based coaching around sleep, activity, fitness, and nutrition.

Companies are also tapping into data such as sentiments and moods. For instance, MediaMath teamed up with IBM, to activate right AI-driven programmatic marketing using Watson Cognitive Bidder, for the extraction of predictive signals from exposure to large amounts of data.

Companies which haven’t leveraged the power of data and AI in the marketing plan have considered the following factors as going forward in 2019. They have to declare their consumer data policies, make data actionable, and select the right AI partner.

Most importantly, businesses should confirm their policies regarding the handling of consumer data, transparency, and control.  A company needs to comply with the EU’s new General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). Companies which are vocal about consumer protection have a higher chance of winning customers. Secondly, enterprises have to implement the three pillars for making their data actionable—identifying data, gathering the right data, and data endpoints.

After selecting the actionable data, the company has to choose the right AI partner. They need to choose the partners with real experience who address the particular use case and work with a company’s existing technology partners. Also, businesses have to be sure to check on their partner’s approach to AI, as it is still an emerging technology that indeed demands thoughtful guardrails to produce useful results responsibly.

Cognitive