A few years back, your intelligence quotient (IQ) was something to brag about, and it probably still is anyways. High IQs gave a certain feeling of pride and superpowers. Enter Artificial Intelligence (AI), the much more powered “beings” in town, taking over things. AI which was once touted “the next big thing,” and was tipped to “take away our jobs” has now come to stay.
Artificial Intelligence techs include machine learning, deep learning, natural language generation (NLG), which is a tech that automatically parses through structured datasets and creates narratives from them. These AI are used for marketing, digital advertising, customer service provision, search engine optimization (SEO), virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR) and web design. Awesome, right? Some of these AI and the brands that use them include:
- Quill
Quill is an AI that is used by the United States Automobile Association, American Century Investments, MasterCard, Credit Suisse, Groupon, Deloitte, and even US Intelligence Groups. What Quill does is that it transforms complex data in its raw form into written reports and narratives. In so doing, these brands are able to enhance decision-making from the insights that are gotten from the reports created in much less time that it would have taken had a human mind done the task.
- Wordsmith
Wordsmith is a content-scaling AI used by firms such as Associated Press (AP), Orlando Magic and DigitalSTROM. Associated Press uses Wordsmith to automatically prepare and write reports of corporate earnings, a task that would have taken their reporters a lot of time to do. For Orlando Magic, however, Wordsmith allows them to interact with each fan in a unique way by generating personalized fan emails that include special messages and offers that are customized for them. DigitalSTROM, a brand that provides smart home systems, uses a customized version of Wordsmith to deliver original status messages, reports and narratives to customers on demand via email or the DigialSTROM app, keeping their users informed on relevant and personalized topics.
- Albert
Albert is a machine learning and digital advertising AI that provides insights into advertising effectiveness, thereby improving the performance of online ads. It is used by Algorithms and Harley-Davidson to word ads and ascertains which adverts will work now and which adverts are best reserved for later.
- CaliberMind
CaliberMind is an intelligence tool that provides insights and information about the behavior of customers. It carries out psychographic analysis of customers and predicts which prospects are more promising than others thereby enhancing marketing efforts. It is used by Citrix, NetApp, Datavail, Convercent, and Gusto to generate more sales and better-quality deals.
- PaveAI
PaveAI is used by over 1000 companies in 7 countries including Procter and Gamble, Scribd, Four Seasons Hotels, and Resorts. PaveAI basically works with all websites that support Google Analytics such as WordPress, HubSpot, Shopify, Magento, etc. What PaveAI does is to extract actionable intel and insights from data, basically sorting out the signal from noise. PaveAI processes Google Analytics data from users and customers and prepares reports (in less than 30 seconds) for key insights into what marketing strategies are working and what to do to improve. Statistical models are implemented through machine learning and data science algorithms.
- Acrolinx
Acrolinx is a content optimization tool that uses natural language processing and learning to create great content at scale that fits the brand and target audience. Brands that use Acrolinx include IBM, Facebook, Microsoft, Boeing, Caterpillar, Nestle and Well Fargo. It predicts content success and helps writers keep their content on-brand and on-target. In so doing, it identifies the brand and audience goals and ensures that the content aligns with those goals
- Open topic
Opentopic is cognitive marketing tools that use natural language processing to identify audiences and recommend content that gives marketers better understanding of customers and how to engage them through optimized stories and messages. It is powered by IBM® Watson™ Application Programming Interfaces (APIs). Opentopic is used by clients such as Times Publishers, Comcast NBC Universal, The Economist, Pitney Bowes, Beumer Group to analyze unstructured data.
- Boomtrain
Boomtrain is a marketing AI that enables brands to interact with their customers and users giving rise to more engagement and retention. It helps companies send personalized and relevant mobile app and email notifications at any scale to customers. Boomtrain is used by brands such as Forbes, CBS, GameSpot, Chow.com, The Onion, Distractify. Boomtrain drives increased clicks, engagement and revenue generation from content. How Boomtrain works is that it uses machine learning to analyze content that is most likely to interest individual consumers and then delivers the content in an automated manner.
Some other brands that brilliantly execute AI
- Los Angeles Times
The Los Angeles Times uses content-creating AI to keep up with the high demand for up-to-date information. They created a tool called EQBOT that picks up data (e.g. earthquake data) from the US Geological Survey and automatically writes and delivers crucial information such as the magnitude or epicenter of an earthquake. EQBOT has its own Twitter handle that makes this process seamless.
- Taco Bell
Taco Bell uses a chatbot, Tacobot, to engage in helpful, human-like conversations with customers who are hungry and need to order a meal for pickup through Slack. In doing so, they are capable of responding to different customers and their queries all day, the world over.
- Soul Machines/The Australian Government
Soul Machines developed an intelligent personal assistant named Nadia for the Australian government to provide people who have disabilities with easier and better access to information concerning their national insurance benefits. Nadia is capable of conveying human emotion and responding to those who engage her by reading their emotional states through vocal and facial cues.
- Walmart
Walmart moved into the 21st century somewhat slowly, but around 2010 the giant retailer put greater focus on its online presence and today is the second largest online retailer in the US. With over 60 million items listed online, Walmart makes a great usage of machine learning algorithms that help with advanced inventory management and its vast supply chains.
- Starbucks
Starbucks Corporation, the American coffee giant, uses a digital assistant (My Starbucks Barista) that possesses the skills of a human barista to take and modify orders and even confirm pickup locations. My Starbucks Barista is even going to spell your name right, so you need not worry about that.
- Sephora
Choosing what cosmetics to use can be really overwhelming, and Sephora knows this, so they have a beauty advice chatbot to make the process easier. The chatbot shares content and product suggestions making the entire beautification process beautiful!
You do see, then, that AI has indeed come to stay!
