OPINION: AI - Doesn’t it feel… artificial?
It can’t be stopped. Artificial intelligence is literally in every news article you read at this point. Whether it’s going to automate and run your company, or it’s just another tool on the toolbelt, you’ve probably tried to use a few platforms. Notice anything? It’s pretty artificially intelligent (pun intended).
We experimented with a ton of AI services out there to see what kind of impact it would provide on digital marketing, web development, and branding. Though it seems like it saves time, AI feels more like a tool that can assist you in your daily tasks, rather than provide you with actual answers. Sure, AI can create a quick HTML5 form with some Javascript validation, but you wouldn’t put that on your website without testing it -would you? Of course not. (Aren’t you just copy and pasting anyway?)
When it comes to digital marketing, we felt like AI would be a must have tool to keep the creative development time to a minimum, but the second you enter ad copy and color HEX codes, the results are… to be honest, garbage. Templated, boring, inconsistent, and repetitive layouts, plagued by font size, contrast, and accessibility issues. Talk about looking cookie cutter, it really looks like a half-baked idea.
Now, that’s not to say AI tools and services are not going to continue to advance. Surely, they will. Nonetheless, it does not feel like a substitute for expertise in the industry. Creative teams and web developers still have the subject matter expertise to know when something is on brand, human written, and not lost somewhere in the uncanny valley. Is anyone really believing the CGI generated, talking-head videos are real people? It comes across disingenuous.
Chatbots are subject to this torment too. After trying multiple options, we felt like we were circling back to the same request, “please get me a real person.” Is the goal to have a glorified FAQ chatbot relay basic information, only to finally say “no one is available to talk right now?” With the constant talk about AI and automation, and countless races to be first-to-market, we wonder if it’s the human touch that will prevail as the leading conversion metric?
That being said, we’re comfortable in making one prediction, if you think AI generated content isn’t going to be flagged by plugins or default settings on web browsers, you clearly didn’t pay attention when websites without SSL certificates became flagged with a warning label.
If you are looking to get advice on how to navigate this new era of web services, give us a call. We’re here to help guide companies that want to stay up to date, but also understand the value of real customer service and on-brand marketing. Visit ALTAMIT.net to chat live with an online specialist. Or call (888) 377-ALTA, that’s (888) 377-2582 to speak with a specialist now.
