When Will AI Be Rich Enough To Start Customizing The Experiences Without Relying On Us Marketers?

Executive Advisor & Fellow at Harvard Business School, David Edelman, delves into the future of AI in customizing experiences independently from marketers. Exploring the potential of AI to personalize experiences autonomously, David discusses the evolving role of technology in shaping customer interactions. Join us as David Edelman shares insights on the trajectory of AI in delivering tailored customer experiences. Show NotesConnect With:David Edelman: Website // LinkedInThe MarTech Podcast: Email // Newsletter // TwitterBenjamin Shapiro: Website // LinkedIn // TwitterSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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  Welcome to the Martech Podcast, a member of the I Hear Everything Podcast Network. In this podcast, you'll hear the stories of world-class marketers that use technology to drive business results and achieve career success. Here's the host of the Martech Podcast, Benjamin Shapiro.

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  Welcome to the Martech Podcast. I'm your host, Benjamin Shapiro, and today we're going to discuss customer strategy in the AI era. Joining me is David Edelman, who is a senior lecturer at Harvard Business School and the executive advisor to Edelman Advisory Services. He is also the author of The Personalized Customer Experience in the Age of AI. And today, David and I are going to talk about the history of personalization. I want to move on to our last lightning round question, which is called crystal ball. So I want you to look into your crystal ball. And right now marketers are spending an insane amount of time working on building AI experiences. What does your crystal ball say or show you about what point AI will be rich enough

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  to start customizing the experiences without relying so much on the marketer interactions?

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  I always think market people are going to need to be in the loop because you do want to make sure that what's actually happening makes sense for your brand. There's a lot of risks and I think there will be a lot of risks going forward. I also think there has to be innovation and I do believe that marketers will always have a seat at the table to understand customers and bring new kinds of innovations and experiences to the table. So I don't think the goal should be to get marketers out of the loop. I think the goal should be to expand the range of areas where you can provide value

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  and the whole palette of experience you can deliver. So where I actually think AI is going is enabling marketers, well, brands, companies, to actually provide even broader personalized solutions. So one of the things we don't talk enough about AI is AI can write code. We talk a lot about content. We don't talk as much about code. So AI can write the code, for example, to combine different streams of data in an integrated way. So there's a product called Narrative that a number of companies, Pepsi, Nielsen, The Trade Desk, use this. It looks at one data set, understands its schema, looks at the second data set, understands that schema,

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  writes the code to integrate those, normalize them and clean up aberrations in the data. If AI can start doing that, it makes it easier not only for a company to bring its data together, but it can work with other companies to exchange data and bring it together and use AI to manage privacy, who has the rights to see what data, having an audit trail. So we're starting to see companies like Maria, Home Depot, using AI as the seed bed now for ecosystems of providers working together to solve a personal desire. So I want to renovate.

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  My bathroom, I should be able to take a picture of my bathroom through that picture. Home Depot can understand the dimensions, it can see where the pipes are, where right now, the sink, toilet, shower, all of that are, I can tell them what my budget is. I can maybe upload pictures from Pinterest about different styles. And Home Depot can come back to me and say, here's five different options. Here's the cost, here's how we can coordinate getting that implemented. They are working on that. This is happening. Companies are starting to see themselves as destinations for personal solutions. And these ecosystems are going to be important strategic issues. Are you the center of one? Are you participating in one?

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  Are you going to be locked out? So there's strategy implications here for where this is starting to go.

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  David, we're in a brand new era of personalization. And I think it's front and center for what all marketers are thinking about. We've got these new tools to try to navigate the river of data that we've been floating on and try not to sink. And they are incredibly powerful. We are all sorting out the right way to take in data, make sure that we're analyzing it correctly and make the best use of it to provide better customer experiences. I appreciate you coming on the show and giving a little bit of a point of direction for which way us marketers should think about using artificial intelligence in this new era of personalization. Thank you for coming on and being my guest.

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  Sure, my pleasure, Ben.

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  All right, and that wraps up this episode of the Martech Podcast. Thanks for listening to my conversation with David Edelman, the Executive Advisor and Senior Lecturer at Harvard Business School. If you'd like to get in touch with David, you can find a link to his LinkedIn profile in our show notes, or you can visit his company's website, which is edelmanadvisorieservices.com. You can also find his book at personalizedthebook.com.

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  If you'd like a summary of this podcast, or if you'd like to be our next guest speaker on the Martech Podcast, head over to martechpod.com. You can also find us on YouTube, Twitter, Instagram, or even on TikTok now. And if you'd like to contact me, let's connect over on LinkedIn. My handle is Ben J. Shap, B-E-N-J-S-H-A-P. And if you haven't subscribed yet, and you want a daily stream of marketing and technology knowledge in your podcast feed, hit the subscribe button in your podcast app, and we'll be back in your feed tomorrow morning. All right, that's it for today. But until next time, my advice is to just focus on keeping your customers happy.

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  Thanks for listening to the Martech Podcast, an I Hear Everything production. Looking to launch or scale a podcast like this one for your brand? Then visit ihereverything.com.