What difference will artificial intelligence and emerging technology make to marketing in 2020? CMO asks the experts
Ruffell goes onto say the rate of technological advancement is not going to slow down in the foreseeable future, and this is shortly going to include 3D holograms.
“At the moment we’re looking at a very new solution that has been rolled out in Hong Kong but hasn’t been rolled out here yet, 3D holograms. It can be used to bring characters to life, as well as bring people into an event virtually when they can’t physically take part," he said.
According to Garter, hyper-automation is the combination of AI and multiple machine learning (ML), packaged software, and automation tools to deliver a process, thing or service faster than automation alone. According to the analyst firm's predictions, hyper-automation refers not only to tools, but also to all the steps of automation itself, such as discover, analyse, design, automate, measure, monitor and reassess.
While this trend is similar to RPA, this alone is not hyper-automation. Instead, hyper-automation requires a combination of tools to help support replicating human involvement, Gartner said.
Garter also said conversational platforms are changing the way in which people interact with the digital world. Combined with VR, AR and mixed reality (MR), this shift in both perception and interaction models is leading to a future of multisensory and multimodal experience.
“The model will shift from one of technology-literate people to one of people-literate technology. The burden of translating intent will move from the user to the computer,” Gartner research vice-president, Brian Burke, said. “This ability to communicate with users across many human senses will provide a richer environment for delivering nuanced information.”
We can’t have a predictions article without a comment on voice and smart speakers in general. As more consumers expect to be able to interact with brands using only voice, a voice strategy has never been more important.
Verbrugghe said the future of customer engagement will see AI take most of the load creating better customer experience, with the purpose of avoiding escalations to customer service.
“That includes bots becoming the main method for contextual push marketing. Voice will also become the main medium by which customers interact with brands, either through home pods, wearables or integrated assistants in branded apps.”
Related: What you need to know about voice-based marketing
Data privacy and security goes hand-in-hand with emerging technology. Gartner said consumers are increasingly aware their personal information is valuable and are demanding control. Organisations also recognise the increasing risk of securing and managing growing amounts of personal data, and governments are implementing strict legislation to ensure they do.
Therefore, transparency and traceability are critical elements to support digital ethics and privacy needs. This includes an ethical approach to use of AI and other advanced technologies.
As Gartner pointed out, AI and ML will continue to be applied to augment human decision making across a broad set of use cases. However, it creates significant new challenges for the security team and risk leaders with a massive increase in potential points of attack with Internet of Things (IoT), cloud computing, microservices and highly connected systems in smart spaces.
Head of global commerce strategy at Publicis Sapient, Jon Reily, said he’s optimistic into the future.
"There's a lot of fear and trepidation about the mothership watching your every move and the erosion of privacy. But at the end of the day, I have trust in the systems and the people that build the systems to create strong security to protect us. And the benefits far outweigh the concerns to me," he said.
“One of the questions asked to me was, did I believe individuals would be able to monetise their own privacy in the future? And my response to that was probably no, simply based on the fact that the technology to glean everything that marketers will want to know about you is probably going to be available in third-party relatively quickly, because of that erosion of basic privacy and the fact our mobile phones are tracking us everywhere.”
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