How can I put this… The past two weeks have seen the two most interesting B2B content marketing conferences of the year. I’m talking about CMI World, which took place last week in Washington, D.C.. And B2B Forum, which wraps up tomorrow in Boston.
And guess which topic monopolized both presentations and conversations? A big elephant in the room at B2B Forum. Artificial intelligence (AI). A word used and discussed everywhere, almost ad nauseam…
Let’s put this in context: we’re not at a conference for techno geeks, but at two conferences for marketers, with the usual focus on content marketing. Which just goes to show how AI is taking over, even in this field. In fact, according to figures released at the B2B Forum, 71% of marketing pros use AI on a daily basis!
But how to use it properly? That’s THE question (of course ;-). It’s a question that hasn’t necessarily led to debate, but which has opposed different visions of what the role of AI in B2B marketing should be.
Your servant or your digital dopplegänger?
So far, the vast majority, if not all, of comments, interventions, opinions, etc. on AI in marketing have been that it should play the bottom two roles in the quadrant, Gartner style, as created by Andrew Davis (below). Play as a novelty to be used with circumspection, or a servant of the lower tasks…
Even here on our blog, we’ve written several posts on AI, positioning it as a tool to be fine-tuned, yes, but very much a servant of the human.
“Ultimately, the future of content marketing will probably be a combination of human creation and AI-based automation.
The marketers and brands who can strike the right balance between the two will probably be the ones who manage to endure and stand out in an increasingly crowded market,” wrote Lynda St-Arneault.
In Boston, all the big influencers did the same, for example: Michael Brenner :
Or Lee Odden :
According to Davis and his “OZ Quadrant”, it’s that we don’t want to give AI much autonomy, not to consider it an “equal”, a partner in its own right. This is what he gradually did, creating his digital doppelgänger “The Great Drewdini“, in reference, of course, to the magician Houdini.
Confrontational? Certainly! In fact, here are two quotations that caused a stir. Here he’s talking about training AI, sharing our «essence».
Reaction from an online participant:
We’re continuing our attendance at the Boston conference and will publish another post tomorrow with a post-balance early next week. Until then, if you’d like to discuss content marketing, strategy and AI, get in touch with us 👉 here.
