Known as The Computer Guy, Joseph Ngare once dreamed of being a sports commentator. Now his thoughts have turned to another sort of sport: artificial intelligence.
He sees brands having a choice between embarking on a new era driven by AI or getting stuck in the past. Ngare contends that including artificial intelligence in digital marketing strategy means a higher return on investment.
“Private-label competition is nothing new,” Ngare said. “It will be interesting to see how this plays out in voice commerce, where the retail experience is guided by AI owned by the makers of private labels.
“All of these shifts in retail will be tricky for brands to navigate,” he said during an Africa Tweet Chat. “It will be a litmus test for the underlying strength of brands.”
Working with artificial intelligence has two-fold results.
“AI empowers machines to think about, respond to and perform tasks like humans,” Ngare said. “It also helps machines learn from experience and adjust to new input.”
Drawing from his experience as entrepreneur and tech junkie, The Computer Guy has his own perspective of artificial intelligence, including the barriers that come with it in digital marketing.
“The good news is that most brands have been keen to the value of data for years,” Ngare said. “Thanks to the ad market in particular, companies have recognized the value of first-party data, especially in light of the increasing cost of acquiring third-party data.
“People used to be very wary of machine learning,” he said. “It was a black box, and they didn’t know whether to trust it. That’s changed. It’s become more like table stakes. Everybody needs to have machine learning to compete effectively.”
Ngare explained how artificial intelligence uses the data collected to inform the making of a digital marketing strategy.
“AI is as big a revolution as the internet itself,” he said. “It’s going to power more of our interactions with our consumers, be it through advertising or even ad serving. All those compartments of marketing will be transformed by AI.”
Ngare agreed that companies that have made extensive use of artificial intelligence are reaping the benefits of increased customer satisfaction, even if aspirations seem high.
“AI has been touted as a silver bullet with infinite magical powers,” he said. “The dawn of AI taking over the world and being a plug-and-play technology has fostered a misconception of what is truly possible today.
“With effective data analysis and the ability to adapt to input, AI is taking over the human role of identifying marketing trends,” Ngare said. “Brands and marketers are leveraging AI digital marketing to save time and resources through automated digital marketing services.”
He explained that automaton powered by artificial intelligence can analyze data to easily predict the buying behaviors and decisions of target customers. This is another version of robots.
“Software automates hardware,” Ngare said. “So, AI is meant for hardware, too.”
