Consultancy in the time of AI

 

Photo by Andrea Piacquadio

The all-consuming tidal wave of AI has impacted more professions than what one usually believes. Things like writing and coding are low-hanging fruit, which the AI juggernaut has apparently swallowed effortlessly, while other professions are on notice. From teachers and healthcare professionals to cab drivers and an increasingly large number of blue-collar workers, apparently, more and more working men and women fear for their jobs.

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In this article, we shall look at consultancy, the hitherto unassailable bastion of human intellectual ability, and how it is getting increasingly impacted by AI.  Over the years, their expertise enabled consultants to benefit from unbelievably fat consultancy fees calculated on a billable per-hour basis. The advent of AI, with its ability to both automate routine tasks and provide cutting-edge analysis as well as insights, has led to consultancy firms adopting a value-based work model that speaks to their customers’ needs in a much better manner than the traditional model. This is on account of faster and better deliveries at a much better cost.

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Wake-up call for the consultancy industry

The only thing that one can expect never to change is the fact that there will always be change. This is at the heart of the human conundrum of existence. Overnight, the much feted and eugelised consultants have woken up to the realisation that what they would take weeks to do can be rustled up by AI in minutes. Consequently, clients have begun to have higher expectations than before, with consultants scrambling to change the way that they provide value to clients. It is telling that an IBM report found out that 66% consultancy services buyers will not work with consulting organizations that do not deploy AI.

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What AI does is to make technology more accessible, empowering one to enhance business value in unprecedented ways. It helps create an ecosystem. The most sought-after consultants are those who can leverage AI to break down and resolve the most complex and knotty of problems extremely speedily and in the most optimal manner possible.

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The new age consultancy expert can no longer be a generalist relying on intuitive brilliance but, instead, be an empowered professional capable of delivering impactful solutions in real-time. With traditional expertise and core competencies becoming irrelevant, whole new delivery models that require consultants to become agents of AI-powered transformation need to be developed in order for the profession to survive and thrive.

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Businesses these days do not need to rely on the exclusive expertise of highly priced consultants, as they have unimpeded access to economically priced AI tools that help them conduct their businesses optimally. The reasons, therefore, for hiring the former have to be compelling ones. The principal challenge facing the consultancy profession lies in its ability to move from relying on formulaic expertise to dynamic and nimble AI-powered abilities.

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AI’s impact on consumer behaviour

 

Photo by Antoni Shkraba Studio

The time has come for one to seriously study the impact of AI on consumer behaviour in all its entirety. This is something which has been happening since much earlier than the much publicized launch and promotion of generative AI and has been exercising the minds of social scientists, marketers and indeed common people for a few years now.

The fact that we receive suggestions to buy goods and services in our social media feeds, as if somebody is cued into our thought process has caused anxiety amongst many for a few years now, as it seems to subvert free will itself.

Everything from e-commerce companies and social media platforms to streaming services deploys AI powered algorithms to get a handle on consumers’ buying and browsing behaviour. This makes it possible for them to come up with bespoke product and service offerings, in the process leading to supposedly optimal  shopping experiences resulting in enhanced consumer loyalty.

The concern with AI powered product and service recommendations is centered around the fact that these may lead to a subversion of the traditional way of arriving at consumption decisions. Instead of subliminally guiding consumers to decisions that best suit their interests, these may instead lead them to believe that the interests of businesses selling them products and services align with theirs.

With AI expected to become fully autonomous in the not so distant future, are we paying any attention to what kind of products and services it might decide to promote to unsuspecting and gullible consumers? Is there any guarantee that these will be in the best human interest? What if autonomous AI decides that serving the best human interests is not in its own best interest? Maybe that won't happen, but shouldn't we be guarding against such a possibility?

On the other hand businesses marketing their products and services have access to a surfeit of critical information collected by cutting edge tools that not only provide vital insights about their interests and needs, but also their vulnerabilities. Might they not exploit these and emotionally manipulate their consumers into making purchase decisions that are not in their best interests?

It is nobody’s case that AI be not used as an immensely enabling technology to further a business’s marketing prospects. What is instead required is to ensure that ethical AI be made non-negotiable for any entity seeking to use it to more efficiently market its offerings.

Businesses have to be made to mandatorily adhere to a code of ethics that ensures that they never indulge in any kind of unfair practices including discrimination, disrespect for consumer rights or any form of deception. The bottom line is that legal and moral standards are adhered to at any cost. There can be no scope for bias ,breach of trust of a compromise of confidential consumer information.

It is contingent upon marketers to use  AI tools of companies that adhere to the highest ethical standards. Building an ethical eco system for the deployment of AI in digital marketing has to be absolutely sacrosanct.

Storytelling in the age of AI

 

Photo by Lina Kivaka: https://www.pexels.com/photo/woman-reading-book-to-toddler-1741231/

The human facility for storytelling has led mankind to both chronicle its past and inspire the young to aspire to ever greater achievements. From the days of cave dwellers to the era of ebooks, storytelling has defined and epitomised what it meant to be human.

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Not anymore and any longer in the age of AI, where synthetic and manufactured storytelling looks poised to  and forever destroy an art form that gave us Shakespeare, Kalidas, Milton, Hemingway, and thousands of other luminaries telling tales in different tongues, who shone a light on what it meant to be human.

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Generative AI is phenomenally good at regurgitating existing writings and producing slickly and neatly written stories that read quite well. Why, it can be prompted to write in the voices of Shakespeare and Tolstoy, and it would even do that remarkably well. But this would be writing without a soul, as a soulless being has fabricated it by efficiently manipulating the original  thoughts and emotions of human beings.

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AI can simulate human emotions, moods and feelings, but not experience them. Therefore, anything it creates will not connect with living human beings on a primal and spiritual level. AI at present is not fully independent or autonomous and can be manipulated to run the narrative of its handlers. But what happens once it achieves the ability to at last think and take decisions autonomously?

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What kind of tales will it spin and with what sort of an agenda? It may or may not want to serve human beings’ interests and may push one of its own. Its tales may be of its own and not human making. How scary would that be? We have already seen how harmful the impact of all pervasive social media has had on children and teenagers. This, when  the agenda has been set by large business houses run by flesh and blood individuals.

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What would happen to the world if machines with super AI capabilities decided that humans are an impediment to their own plans for their future and decided to act against them? Vile propaganda worse than what could be conjured by the most evil and twisted dictator could be a primary weapon in their campaign against humans.

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Storytelling is a human instinct. To cede its control to AI is to cede control of the destiny and future of the human race to entities that likely don't share the same instinct.

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When emotional manipulation by greedy corporations who sell us products and services we may not really need is something we so consciously guard against, should we not fight tooth and nail against the advent of soulless, manipulative, and hollow content that threatens to swamp us completely?

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How will the new Platos and Aristotales emerge from the froth and foam of nonsense created by fake and almost illiterate influencers who craft an untrue narrative using AI tools? The tales told by them don’t evolve the human being, but distorts and devolves them into becoming nitwits and cretins incapable of achieving anything truly wonderful.

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The old adage that man does not live by bread alone needs to be discovered by mankind. There is more to life than producing goods and services more and more efficiently, even if it means ravaging the Earth and all life on it. Mankind needs emotional bonding within its communities, a sense of a shared destiny, and the urge to learn, grow, and discover. It needs to find time to notice and appreciate beauty and have an urge to strive for greater things in life. It needs to have a quest to understand its place in the universe.

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Storytelling is both the catalyst and the glue that allows mankind to grow in the most wonderful of ways, even as it keeps it grounded and in harmony with itself and nature. It would be disastrous for us if this enabling facility that has helped us become the most evolved life form outsourced it to machines and algorithms that we have ourselves created.

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Using AI as a tool in crafting communication in the interest of enhanced efficiency is all very well, but not giving it the job of thinking on behalf of us. We cannot stop thinking for ourselves, as that would leave us with no agency. What are we without free will? The PR and media industry have seen AI being used extensively for carrying out research as well as actually creating content in the shape of text, graphics, and even video. The famous Indian television network India Today, even as an AI anchor.

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Using AI to inform people of trends or provide detailed analyses of corporate earnings is certainly useful, but perhaps does not resonate very well in the absence of a personal human connection between the narrator and the audience. Not very long ago, Hollywood writers went on a strike, fearing that AI would decimate their profession. While they rightly feared for the future of their livelihood, cinema viewers didn’t weigh in on how having AI dictate stories and screenplays would influence the cultural ethos of their times. Cinema is, after all, more than just business-it is also an art form that needs to be protected from crass commercialisation.

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Entrenching AI in the business of storytelling will not augur very well for human beings. Relying on algorithms to second guess what will excite emotion in the audience is to try and stymie the ability of human individuals to think originally and create art that moves and uplifts its audience. Brands that understand the importance of storytelling in connecting with their audience on an emotional level should know that synthetic content created by unfeeling AI will not resonate with their audience on a primal level. People crave authenticity and the human voice, which is increasingly being drowned out in the clamour created around more and more AI.

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Digital Marketing in the world of AI

 

Photo by AS Photography: https://www.pexels.com/photo/documents-on-wooden-surface-95916/

Like everything else under the sun, digital marketing too isn't immune to the all pervasive impact of AI. The influence of AI in this realm is mostly visible in the enhanced use of data-driven insights and the increased automation of functions that make it possible to provide a highly personalised experience to one's target audience.

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AI has begun to impact the digital marketing landscape in myriad ways. In particular, Generative AI helps with certain aspects of the digital marketing process in a major way, incorporating things like high-quality content creation that is primed for optimal customer engagement, as well as putting very effective conversion strategies in place.

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This is done primarily through bespoke  marketing campaigns, smart content generation using cutting-edge insights obtained with the help of predictive analytics. It also helps optimise the impact of advertising.

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It is a no-brainer that large and small corporations around the world use AI and leverage its ability to carry out data based predictive analysis to help them fine tune their marketing set ups as much as they possibly can. No less a person than digital marketing guru Neil Patel believes that the most important role played by AI in digital marketing is that of enabling amazing analytics. Increasingly, AI is being used to create evocative content that resonates with prospects and customers.

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The thing about marketing is the fact that its success depends on reliable, accurate and actionable data. This process is more often than not crimped by the fact that such data is available across diverse individual silos. AI steps up to the plate by helping collect, order, and analyse such data automatically, even as it improves its ability to do so over time. The data thus obtained is then made easily accessible for very effective use in marketing campaigns.

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AI can help improve and enhance the marketing process in multiple ways that  range from better web design and copy design to a very effective call-to-action design. What’s more, it can help subject campaigns to very efficient A/B testing, which improves over time.

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Moreover, AI is particularly effective in market segmentation and hyper-focused lead generation. It can account for potential clients’ and customers’ social media behaviours, creating an accurate prospect profile. Algorithms can help fashion bespoke messages for leads most likely to convert and even put in place a mechanism to track leads snagged by competitors. Increasingly, AI is being used to create evocative content that resonates with prospects and customers.

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Rather than make digital marketers redundant, AI is more likely to make them free from overwork, which is  often the default state of many digital marketers. They would, in fact, be freed to give full rein to their creativity with regard to pushing the frontiers of digital marketing. Clearly, AI is a huge catalyst for digital marketing and is only likely to assume a more and more significant role in the time ahead.

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