At the Marketing AI Institute, we read dozens of articles on artificial intelligence every week to uncover the most valuable ones for our subscribers and we curate them for you here. We call it 3 Links in 3 Minutes. Enjoy!
AI Can Be Your Competitive Advantage
Every company in the world is trying to figure out two things: what their customers want, and how they can provide it to them better than the competition.
In Ladder.io’s latest blog, it claims that the easiest way to solve for these questions is through user experience (UX) and artificial intelligence (AI).
To do this, a first recommended step is to figure out how your customers are physically engaging with your product. What is the frequency of clicking the “Add to Cart” button? Are users reading through the entirety of your blog posts? Which topics are they most interested in?
By gathering enough customer data to answer these questions, companies can then utilize AI to “remove painful decision-making from their customers, reduce friction in customer journeys, and ultimately deliver a better user experience.”
A perfect example of this exists within two of the most popular music subscription services, Apple and Spotify.
Apple iTunes has tons of data on what genre its users listen to, for how long, on which days, and more. However, they never leveraged that insight to curate and suggest music to its users (until recently).
Spotify, however, decided it was in the entertainment business, not just music cataloging. They realized users don’t want to spend hours researching and organizing music, they just want to be served the right music at the right time. From this, Discover Weekly was born, a weekly playlist that recommends new music to users based on their listening history.
For more examples of companies marrying UX and AI, check out the full article here.
Microsoft Focuses On Their AI Game
According to CNBC, Microsoft announced this week that they’re infusing their Dynamic cloud software with artificial intelligence as part of a larger push to compete with companies such as Salesforce, Amazon, and Google.
Consequently, they introduced Dynamics 365 AI for Customer Service and Dynamics 365 AI for Market Insights. For customer service, the program can highlight existing and emerging issues, as well as leverage chatbots for customer inquiries. For marketers, the program provides insights into what content customers are engaging with on social media and the web.
Earlier this year, Dynamics 365 AI for Sales was introduced to increase sales and improve decision making through AI-powered insights driven by customer data.
AI + Healthcare = Booming Market
According to VentureBeat, CB Insights just released a report announcing AI healthcare startups have raised over $4.3 billion since 2013, topping all other industries. In addition, in the first half of 2018, China took the U.K.’s place as the second-most active country for healthcare deals.
A portion of this funding comes from pharmaceutical companies interested in AI startups that aim to expedite drug discovery. Companies like Pfizer, Novartis, Sanofi, GlaxoSmithKline, Amgen, and Merck are forming partnerships with these AI startups.
Additionally, the FDA has been essential to this growth. Several AI service categories, such as imaging and diagnostics, have been fast-tracked thanks to “commercial pathways” created by the FDA.
However, CB Insights predicts AI won’t replace clinicians anytime soon. While algorithms are learning as much as possible from datasets, humans are still involved in much of the work.
Ashley Sams
Ashley Sams is director of marketing at Ready North. She joined the agency in 2017 with a background in marketing, specifically for higher education and social media. Ashley is a 2015 graduate of The University of Mount Union where she earned a degree in marketing.