The question whether humans can possibly be replaced by AI especially in the digital marketing arose recently because of the smart technology that Generative AI has been offering to the table. AI posed risks especially to the creative industry since their services became more accessible to the public and has been widely accepted. It has  the potential to contribute many positive changes to society such as an improved productivity, access to possibly better healthcare solutions, and a paved way for choosing educational readings and research. Though today, AI is still a threat to the creative professionals because of its technology that helps solve complex problems such as in the academe or commerce where it can now create full articles, in science where it can give possible healthcare solutions, and in commerce where it can give more advanced choices as it reads through human profiles and behaviors with what they browse and look for on the web.

From the word-prompted generated images and “artworks” to fresh copywriting and contents done by AI, it may be alarming to think about the future of the creative industry in digital marketing — whether creative, technical, analytical people are still needed or not. But AI does not have its sense of self, being that it is merely technology created by humans to learn how humans think. It mirrors the cognitive abilities of humans without embodying the human consciousness. AI technically generates “new” images, ideas, and solutions which also came from human intelligence.

When it comes to digital marketing, what we currently have now are automations through different software and AI Analytics which make tasks easier because digital platforms get the stream of data from their users, as well as via cookies. Data has become easier to manage and is measurable. This now becomes a question of how AI can further help digital marketing campaigns, and not necessarily take out the creative and analytical people behind.

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Advantages of Using AI

AI technology processes data fast and gives accurate results* from the information it has been given. It also produces various types of high-quality content which includes but is not limited to text, imagery, audio, and synthetic data. Work can be faster and consistent, guaranteeing digital marketing professionals to cover small and repetitive tasks for them so they can easily focus on more important and time-consuming tasks instead of pouring hours in reports or thinking of new contents from scratch.

*The total accuracy of results is still being studied until today as information changes over time.

Here are some advantages of using AI for digital marketing and brands:

• Detect Fraudulent Activities
  Be more aware of all the activities happening in your system such as hacking, especially in e-commerce websites and social media platforms.

• Faster Transactions
  Answer queries on the spot and access tons of records in seconds to locate the correct documents that are already within the AI technology.

• Analyzes and Reports Data
  Let it do the job for you to compile all information and data, analyze its quality, especially the leads to already come up with a complex report.

AI can improve existing workflows by helping you and your whole team become more productive by throwing in ideas and receiving fresh ones from the data given. It is still important to identify your goals in the business on why you need to work with AI.

Disadvantages of Using AI

Since it has been easier to generate new content by simply typing prompts which produce high-quality images, videos, or text, it is also easy to be fooled on what is real and what is not. An example of these are the so-called Deepfakes which are digitally forged or manipulated images or videos to replace it convincingly with another of the same media that looks very similar to the original. It is very prone to harm the public through fake news and misinformation. Another example is not getting desired results particularly with a specific solution, image, or text you have in mind. It still has its own inaccuracies and imperfections.

Here are some of the disadvantages of using AI in digital marketing and for brands:

• Copyright Infringements
  The content is prone to copyright infringements because you do not know the right source/s of the newly AI-generated content.

• Discrimination
  Since AI is not conscious and gives data through the data it gets from its stocks of labeled training data and analyzed patterns to come up with results, it does not necessarily “care” about what it produces that may come out sensitive to its audience.

• Data Privacy Violations

The technology can give an individual’s personal information without permission through unauthorized data dissemination from its loads of data.

The Advantages of Human Intelligence

Human intelligence has its own strengths and advantages, starting with humans’ creativity and ability to develop AI through time. The different culture and upbringing of each person makes for different human intelligences and rich sources.

In digital marketing, having the emotional quotient (EQ) to process gathered information is still important to connect it with the campaigns that brands create. Personalizing one’s brand to the target audience’s needs is very important to keep it “human”, not merely about selling products and services because, after all, it is humans that businesses reach, not robots.

Here are the advantages of human intelligence in digital marketing:

• Humans Adapt to Changes First
  It is innate for humans to adapt to everyday changes as we have our senses that guide us to survive with our surroundings.

• Humans Decide Subjectively
  Humans can perceive situations and have the freedom to decide according to how one feels.

• Humans are Social Beings
  Communities help one another to build each other up in learning about what is changing around us. Communicating helps us process our surroundings better.

The way that we, humans, incorporate our own creativity, perception, and senses into the AI technology helps it grow together with our ideas since it may come up with new solutions that we did not think of before. Putting together the intelligence of machines with humans may empower the industries.

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Laptop computer on wooden table

The Disadvantages of Human Intelligence

Despite the wonders and abilities that human intelligence can offer, it also has its own disadvantages to take into account that the AI fills in. No matter how genius or unbelievable the human mind is, there are also limitations that we should understand that we cannot repair by ourselves.

Here are the disadvantages of human intelligence in digital marketing:

• Physical Limitations
  Humans tend to lose strength and memory through time; feeling exhausted and tired unlike AI that does its job and keeps all records as long as the data or technology is not corrupted.

• Data Processing
  Humans cannot process data as quickly as AI does. The brain’s capacity cannot hold as much as computers or robots can.

• Human Error

Humans make mistakes unintentionally especially during production, unlike AI that objectively does its tasks even though it is still not perfectly accurate.

Human intelligence is not as perfect especially in terms of collating a huge amount of information that only the AI can handle. We are not like machines that are produced to do repetitive tasks as humans also need rest — we are not programmed the same way.

In Conclusion: Maximizing Both Artificial and Human Intelligence in Digital Marketing

AI and Human Intelligence have their own strengths and weaknesses but each can work together and complete each other’s inadequacies to make a brand’s digital marketing efforts a success. It is not harmful to partner with AI in order to be more productive. Human creativity is still needed to have more accurate and better inputs for the AI. It helps a lot in creating better solutions or thinking of fresher ideas since it may be hard at times to come up with new contents or campaigns.

What humans, specifically the creative industry, can do with the proliferation of AI is to embrace its advantages as they still outweigh the disadvantages — especially that AI is a continuously developing technology. We are still looking forward to what more it can do to make lives easier and more convenient, especially in generating better contents, products, and services in the future for everyone’s good.

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