Rashmy Chatterjee, IBM’s Chief of Marketing for North America, joins a chorus of top execs preaching AI’s indispensability for the future of marketing.

Analytics with benefits

Interviewed by Forbes magazine, Ms Chatterjee says ‘cognitive marketing’ is the next big thing.

She explains it as systems that use data and analytics to learn and to make recommendations, and which face both ways.

Beyond discovering, learning and analysing consumer behaviours, they also communicate with decision makers in natural language and fit into traditional reporting structures.

Storytellers delight

Chatterjee foresees huge marketing advantages to come from this technology.

For starters, it’ll be easier to build and optimise client relationships via an ‘intimate knowledge of their needs’. Then, applying a little creativity, marketers will be able to ‘improve storytelling’ and ‘delight clients at every step of their journey’.

Cognitive future

IBM seems to be floating ‘cognitive’ as a branded take on AI. It evokes a step beyond artificiality, implying machines that think in an organic way.

Either way, a consensus is emerging: Facebook and Google have been developing AI for years. Drobox’s says it’s the future of sales.

You might think this is IT’s responsibility, but every marketer will soon have to know about AI—and top ones will be able to make it work.

Is AI in your marketing mix yet? How do you see it fitting in, whether internally integrated or through third parties?

Copy Transmission is a Melbourne-based agency :: Better Brands. Loud & Clear.