Run: Two Main Problems to be Solved by AI Marketing Currently | Future AI Talk

"Future AI Talk" is a dialogue program co-sponsored by Marteker and Digital Frontier to explore the impact of the rise of generative AI on pan-marketing technology and marketing automation, in order to help the entire industry explore a new marketing path in the era of AIGC.

Interviewee: Run, Co-founder and CEO of BesChannels

Q: How do you think of AI's evolving in 2023? Has AI crossed the chasm?

Run: After communicating with some senior executives in the industry, I found that they pay more attention to the B2C level of AI, and at the B2B level, compared to developing in-house, they prefer to cooperate with SaaS companies such as BesChannels. It is worth noting that Baidu recently launched ChatBI, indicating that its large model has gone deep into the application layer.

As for AI crossing the chasm, it's completely different at the B2B and B2C . At the B2B level, the challenges facing AI are even wider than the gap in the development of Marketing Automation（MA）. For example, when BesChannels started working on MA around 2017, we were lucky enough to have customers like Microsoft and SAP who were willing to support us as "pioneers". However, now there are factors such as data security that limit managers' decisions.

AIGC covers a variety of formats in the field of B2B, the first is the application layer. BesChannels’partners like Eqxiu and POLYV have launched their own applications. This is followed by an upgraded version similar to MA, which can provide features including personalized content generation. Reviewing the past, BesChannels also faced many challenges when we began implementing marketing automation in China.Including how to score user behavior and other interpretative issues involving initialization. There is a lot of subjective judgment, and deep learning technology can effectively solve this problem.

Q: In the application of marketing scenarios, the combination of AI and marketing automation will bring about what revolutionary changes?

Run: In terms of marketing scenarios, GPT has a greater impact on content production and will indirectly affect marketing automation. In the Chinese market, some B2B enterprises will combine GPT+Action as a core product during the financing process, the so-called Action refers to the process of assembling automation through the chat software interface. This approach is essentially an evolving form of low-code development, similar to BI, with sessions as an entry point. Users do not need to reconfigure the canvas, only by describing the requirements to the system, and then the system generates the corresponding template, users can then complete the configuration with a simple click, followed by validation and other tasks, making it ready for use.

AI products will gradually become tools for users to "command".

In fact, whether it is the sales process or the traditional OA process, it can be accessed through the conversation entry, and the user generates a template through the dialogue, and then strings the process together through automation. In the next three to five years, Martech products will go through this transformation. However, this requires Martech enterprises to first cross the data security hurdle and solve infrastructure issues including sample training and trust mechanisms. The current GPT-4 does not fully solve the problem of data permissions, which will be a major obstacle for B2B at the AI application level, and in the B2C domain it would develop faster.

Q: Does the penetration of AI technology in brand marketing mean that marketers need to update their expertise? How can marketers respond to this change and build resilience for the future?

Run: My view is that in the future, marketers must keep pace with the technology advancements, and engineers must be customer-oriented. This means that no matter what position you are in, you need to be close to technology.Consequently, the demands for marketing will be more diversified.

For example, BesChannels has tried to use AIGC tools to name the marketing events’ subjects, and get a large number of multi-angle choices by chatting with AI. Although AI will prefer general answers, it can make users think more comprehensively and logically, and there will be no omissions. Therefore, how to ask AI questions and flexibly use AIGC tools are also core skills that future marketing need to have.

In the current environment of rapid changes in information technology, the change of personal ability is particularly important, especially the ability to symbiosis and interaction with AI. It is suggested that everyone should to use AI tools like ChatGPT, especially content creators, by strengthening the ability to symbiosis with AI can effectively raise personal capacity barriers.

At present, it can be intuitively seen that designers and programmers are relatively large positions affected by AGI, which also drives marketing people to further think about the meta-problem, how to improve self-cognition and application ability in the environment of AGI's increasing influence on marketing, and improve core competitiveness.

Q: The emergence of AIGC has also forced traditional marketing technology companies to redefine their products, business capabilities and ecological landscape. How do you think they should rethink and adjust their strategies?

Run: Thanks to the existence of two barriers of digital infrastructure and data security, Chinese Martech companies were able to avoid a lot of losses under the wave of AIGC. In terms of the industry as a whole, there will be a group of new players in the Martech industry, including CRM companies, which will also emerge in new forms. At the business level, Martech can provide users with more streamlined products by enhancing the flexibility of the underlying architecture. Taking user value as the core factor driving the growth of products and businesses is the future market's higher requirements for Martech, and it is also the development direction of Chinese Martech companies.

Chinese Martech companies are still in the "primary competition stage" that requires us to deeply opetimize our products. However, the overseas Martech environment is more mature, and has entered the elimination stage dominated by acquistions,mergers and listing. Restricted by factors such as data security, infrastructure and technical advantages, the AIGC environment in China is relatively complex.

Compare with B2C products, which have a relatively simple, short-term decision-making process, B2B products are launched through a consensus reached after a game of multiple stakeholders. In recent years, the focus of domestic B2B enterprises has focused on enterprise growth, lack of in-depth polishing of products and processes, and insufficient management of the product itself. Therefore, even if new players continue to enter the game, without solving the fundamental problem, Martech companies are difficult to achieve results in the direction of AI application.

In-depth understanding of the current user needs, and to further optimize our product according to user needs. On the premise of ensuring that infrastructure and products can maximize the advantages of AI, and then return to the perspective of the application layer, to avoid catering to the technical revolution caused by the deviation of the direction.