Marketer In The Loop
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✨ Welcome to Marketer In The Loop!

✨ Welcome to Marketer In The Loop!

How to futureproof yourself, new wave of AI models🍓, and industry insights

Marketer In The Loop
September 25, 2024

In partnership with

Welcome to Marketer in the Loop! This "friends and family" edition marks the start of our journey together. 🎉

We're launching this newsletter to explore how AI is reshaping marketing, beyond the general updates you find elsewhere. Each week, we'll cut through the hype to share strategic insights and practical applications that can impact your work and your career.

Our goal is to provide actionable, jargon-free content to help you harness AI effectively in your marketing strategies.

We see AI as a tool to augment our capabilities, not replace us. It's about working smarter and unlocking new possibilities. We believe in a world where humans and machines coexist, empowering you to be the crucial “human in the loop” - hence our newsletter's name.

I'm excited to have you on board! Your feedback is invaluable. Please say hi and let me know how to improve: [email protected]. 👋🏼

Rei Parreiras, Founder and Editor

In this issue:

Human skills matter. They always will.
OpenAI's vision for the "Intelligence Age".
AI’s impact on search and how to track your share of voice.
How will AI martech affect the buyer experience?
Links that don’t suck – you’ll thank me later. 😊

Reading time: 10 minutes

DEEP DIVE

From fear to the future: How marketers in the loop can thrive in the AI era

Let's confront the reality: AI and automation are advancing rapidly. The World Economic Forum says 75% of companies plan to adopt AI by 2027. That's got many of us in marketing wondering: What's our role in this AI-driven future?

Kevin Roose, New York Times tech columnist and author of "Futureproof," offers insights on this. He suggests we shouldn't try to out-robot the robots. Instead, we should focus on what makes us uniquely human.

“If you, like me, sometimes worry about your place in our automated future, you have a few options. You can try to compete with machines. You can work long hours. You can turn yourself into a sleek, efficient productivity machine. Or you can focus on your humanity and doing the things that machines can’t do: bringing all those human skills to bear on whatever your work is.”

Kevin Roose

Bringing humanity to automation

So, what can we do that AI can't? Actually, quite a lot:

Be surprising, social, and scarce: Cultivate skills that are uniquely human and hard to automate.
Leave handprints: Add that personal touch AI can't replicate.
Don't be an endpoint: Be a creator, not just a consumer of technology.
Treat AI like a chimp army (or “an enthusiastic intern”): Use it as a tool, not a replacement for your judgment.
Embrace the humanities: Understanding human behavior is even more crucial now.

Remember, AI excels at data crunching and pattern recognition, but it can't match our emotional intelligence, strategic thinking, creativity, empathy, and ethical judgment. These are our superpowers in the AI age.

According to Roose, the key is to adapt. As an example, use AI for initial content generation, then apply your human touch. Let AI handle routine tasks, freeing you up for high-level strategy, influencing senior leaders, and areas AI can't address. It's not about competing with AI, but collaborating with it. This human-in-the-loop approach is where the magic happens.

Preparing for tomorrow’s marketing landscape

Here are some ways we can futureproof ourselves:

Stay ahead of the curve on AI marketing
Use AI tools daily - make them visible and easily accessible (tip: add shortcuts to your favorite AI tools on your phone and laptop)
Collaborate with it, don’t compete, and double down on human superpowers
Champion ethical AI use within your organization and with your clients
Keep a growth mindset - remember that change is happening fast

AI is here to stay, and the marketing world is evolving. We can remain relevant and thrive by harnessing our unique human skills.

Are you ready to be the marketer in the loop? Get involved, and be part of the change. The future of marketing is ours to shape. Let's get to it!

INSIGHTS

AI on primetime

ICYMI, Oprah Winfrey hosted an hour-long primetime event on September 12th to demystify AI’s impact on our daily lives. And last week, Netflix launched a new series with Bill Gates called “What’s Next? The Future With Bill Gates” and guess what the theme for the first episode is? Yes, AI!

Why it matters to marketers: Oprah and Bill Gates are introducing AI to the masses, making consumers more informed and aware of the transformation we are going through. It may lead to new demands such as disclosures on AI use in their favorite products and services.

INSIGHTS

As you strategize for 2025, assess your AI share of voice

AI tools are gaining traction. A survey by The Information revealed that 77% of their readers use AI tools for searches, with 25% using them more frequently than Google (take it with a pinch of salt given their tech-savvy audience). Similar trends were observed in other polls, including one showing 8% of participants now defaulting to ChatGPT for search.

This trend is attributed to lower friction from AI search tools with a conversational interface that provide direct answers, summaries, and insights instead of a list of links. Although more people are using AI, Google won’t be replaced by it soon due to its large customer base and established infrastructure.

Why it matters to marketers: AI is emerging as an influential intermediary between brands and consumers, affecting purchasing decisions and brand perceptions. To adapt to this changing landscape, it's crucial for marketing professionals to begin monitoring their brand's share of voice across AI platforms.

Here are three solutions to track brand visibility across LLMs: Profound (paid services, covers ChatGPT, Perplexity, Google Gemini), Seer Interactive - GenAI Answer Tracking (free & paid services, covers ChatGPT only) and HubSpot - AI Search Grader (free, covers ChatGPT only).

Use AI as Your Personal Assistant

Ready to embrace a new era of task delegation?

HubSpot’s highly anticipated AI Task Delegation Playbook is your key to supercharging your productivity and saving precious time.

Learn how to integrate AI technology into your processes, allowing you to optimize resource allocation and maximize output with precision and ease.

Download Now!

DEEP DIVE

OpenAI’s “Intelligence Age” is already here, it’s just not evenly distributed

OpenAI has been busy lately. They're not just launching new models and features; CEO Sam Altman also shared his vision of the future.

Sam Altman's perspective on AI

This week he shared a blog post on the "Intelligence Age." It's not sci-fi; it's a roadmap for AI and humans to solve global challenges. Altman sees AI as a partner amplifying human capabilities, potentially revolutionizing industries, and economies. But he's not ignoring the challenges. Altman acknowledges the massive changes AI will bring, including job disruptions.

“This may turn out to be the most consequential fact about all of history so far. It is possible that we will have superintelligence in a few thousand days (!); it may take longer, but I’m confident we’ll get there.”

Sam Altman

Path to Artificial General Intelligence

OpenAI's ultimate goal is to create artificial general intelligence (AGI), an AI that can outperform humans on most tasks. According to Bloomberg, in July they shared internally their definitions for five levels of AGI, resembling similar schemes for understanding progress toward fully autonomous vehicles. Many believe we have just reached level 2 - Reasoners with o1-preview, an early version of the upcoming full o1 model.

Level 1 - Chatbots: AI with conversational language
Level 2 - Reasoners: human-level problem-solving
Level 3 - Agents: systems that can take actions
Level 4 - Innovators: AI that can aid in invention
Level 5 - Organizations: AI that can do the work of an organization

Fun fact: they don't refer to the possibility of AI systems becoming autonomous - able to act on their own initiative without human direction.

Let's look at two recent announcements that bring this vision to life:

o1-preview (aka Strawberry): The AI model that can "think and reason"

Meet o1-preview, OpenAI's new thinking and reasoning model. While GPT-4o is still a fantastic tool for everyday needs due to its speed and versatility, o1 excels in tasks requiring deep reasoning, planning, and multi-step solutions. o1 tackles complex problems in science, math, and coding with incredible skill. It solved 83% of International Mathematics Olympiad qualifier problems, a leap from its predecessor's 13%. Now, imagine a future with a PhD-level assistant that can analyze data, predict trends, and develop strategies.

But there’s a caveat: this model takes longer to think through the prompts. This extra effort helps break down complex tasks, refine their approach, and catch their own mistakes. Also, it can’t access the web and doesn’t offer file uploads (yet).

Here are quick tips to prompt o1-preview:

Keep it simple and direct
Don’t use chain of thought prompts (it’s already built in)
Use delimiters like quotation marks, tags or section titles
Don’t overload it with information

Advanced Voice Mode: AI gets personal

OpenAI also announced the rollout of Advanced Voice Mode for ChatGPT that sound strangely like a human (yes, it says “hum”, laughs and changes the tone when talking about a difficult topic). It can store custom instructions, memory of the behaviors the user want to exhibit, and has nine unique voices with their own personalities. This isn’t just fun; it’s about creating more natural, engaging AI experiences. For marketers, it opens possibilities in personalized customer interactions but also challenges ensuring our brands are well represented via audio.

The bigger picture

As we enter the Intelligence Age, the potential of AI to transform marketing is huge. From hyper-personalized campaigns to AI-assisted strategies, our toolkit is evolving rapidly.

As Professor Ethan Mollick said, “as these systems level up and inch towards true autonomous agents, we’re going to need to figure out how to stay in the loop - both to catch errors and to keep our fingers on the pulse of the problems we’re trying to crack.“ Onward.

INSIGHTS

Will AI in martech improve or worsen buyer experiences?

AI in martech can automate tasks and personalize experiences, but misuse can lead to impersonal or negative consumer experiences. Balancing efficiency with customer value is crucial. Read the full article by Chief Martec (and this LinkedIn post).

Why it matters to marketers: we must listen to the “voice of the customer” and champion the work to serve them best. This applies to new magic AI capabilities, and a reminder that sometimes (I dare say most of the times) we need to prioritize quality over quantity.