Know Thy Customer: IBM’s SVP/CMO on the Value of AI

How does a modern brand team get to know the company’s customers and prospective customers better? Do the MBAs on board make it a priority to “walk a mile in the customer’s shoes?” Or do they prefer to suck up the data with a machine?

In IBM’s case, the company trusts in the machine. IBM’s SVP/CMO Michelle Peluso says AI is changing how brands interact with customers.

Here she is on CNBC:

Clients can’t client without data. I’m for gathering data and using it to further a brand’s goals. The question is how to best do this and how to best use the data. I’ve transcribed a portion of the video, so you can see how IBM’s SVP/CMO Michelle Peluso frames the technology as a marked advance, if not industry savior.

Artificial Intelligence will shape the marketing profession in several ways. First of all, it allows us to understand more about our customers. We can analyze tone, we can listen in on chatbots, we can analyze personality in social. We have the ability to develop a richer understanding of our customers.

Secondly, AI will change the way we interact with customers…It’s even changing advertising. Rather than us broadcasting out a message, we can say in an ad, a digital ad, ‘What’s in your refrigerator? Tell us what’s in your refrigerator.’ We’ll match that with a can of soup and give you a great recipe. Or, tell us why you’re interested in a certain car, and we will tailor the content live, to make sure you’re getting the answer. So, It will change interacting and advertising with customers.

Finally, it will change how we work. We are sitting on a growing and immense amount of data. It’s almost overwhelming, and we need Artificial Intelligence as marketers to understand the next best action for our customers.

It sounds good. Or does it?

Are you open to a digital ad that asks you what’s in your fridge? Or can you figure out what meal to make the old fashioned way?

Do you want to shop for a car based on what AI suggests? Or would you rather walk the lot and get behind the wheel?

As with so many things in technology and marketing, just because you can, doesn’t mean you should.