AI is trying to understand to be more human

On the sidelines of the VSMCamp & CSMOSummit 2023 event in Ho Chi Minh City, Chairman of Le Bros - Vice Chairman of CSMO Vietnam Le Quoc Vinh talked with VTC News about the changes in the marketing market in the face of the development wave of artificial intelligence (AI).

- The Vietnamese economy in particular and the world in general are still in an extremely difficult period. Businesses must make great efforts to survive in the market as well as find new directions for development. At this time, what is the effective marketing solution, sir?

When the economy is tough, consumers are no longer willing to spend money on shopping. This forces marketers to develop clear strategies to create “demand” for customers.

Marketers will have to understand customers, analyze and explain why they like this product, and why they need to buy that product.

AI will play an important role in collecting, analyzing data, and creating solutions to build these “needs” for customers. Understanding this problem, brands will have an easier time reaching users and improving marketing effectiveness.

Mr. Le Quoc Vinh - Chairman of Le Bros, Vice Chairman of CSMO Vietnam. (Photo: TK)

- So is “AI best at improving the relationship between companies and consumers”?

Do you see a huge paradox today? When human communication is increasingly lacking in humanity, communication lacks emotion, becomes dry, indifferent to the feelings and needs of the other person, machines are trying to simulate communication and understanding more like humans.

Scientific advances such as the internet, social networks, OTT… then voice technology, automated support staff, virtual assistants and automated chat on websites… create more connections, but increase the distance between companies, brands and customers as people.

Machines are trying to emulate more human-like communication and understanding.

Le Bros Chairman, Le Quoc Vinh

For example, there are many salespeople who make cold calls without knowing who they are talking to or what their needs are. They speak like a machine. People are gradually tending to abuse technology to connect and forget their own characteristics, which is emotional communication.

But AI has the potential to bridge that gap by helping marketers, through the collection and analysis of behavioral data, better understand and pinpoint the needs, expectations, pain points, and psychology of each media audience. AI can scale personalization and customer precision in ways that never existed before.

AI has helped businesses behave more like humans. Interestingly, this advanced technology has made marketers change their perspective and think about how they should communicate with their customers.

So we have to re-evaluate the capabilities of AI. It can do a lot of things, free us from work, so that we have time and energy to find connections between people. AI will do all the simple jobs, tasks, and machines. As for finding ways to change the world , humans will do it better.

- With such power, will AI soon become a threat to those in the marketing field?

Technology is not born by itself, it is created by humans, humans are still the subject of technology. Therefore, it can be affirmed that, in general, artificial intelligence can hardly replace humans in general and the marketing industry in particular.

Currently, AI is being developed in a controlled and gradually optimized manner to become a useful tool to serve humans, not a "force" to replace humans. However, AI can replace humans in certain fields and jobs. For example, in the marketing industry, there are people who do creative intellectual work, and there are people who only do purely information processing work.

Currently, in some marketing strategy building processes, AI has been able to take a few positions and even handle jobs better, which are simple, repetitive jobs, jobs that only require data processing such as reporting or research through reading documents, translation...

On the one hand, AI is a powerful “assistant”, fully supporting marketers, on the other hand, it also significantly reduces the role of Marketers, and sometimes feels redundant. Specifically, instead of needing a team of 6-7 content creators for advertising activities, now only 1-2 content creators and one person will be needed to review the results of AI collection and processing.

Therefore, people in the marketing industry face many challenges and pressures when AI accompanies them in their work. They have to learn how to master AI tools, instead of learning what AI can do.

- So how to use AI technology to achieve the best results? Selection or synchronous development?

AI is still not yet perfect in terms of emotional intelligence and cultural absorption. AI can support information collection and provide specific solutions, but to recognize the aspect of the problem as a challenge or an opportunity, humans are still the decisive factor.

Additionally, businesses cannot replace all of their customer service with AI. Humans tend to work with people they like, creating a human touch. Machines cannot achieve this emotional aspect.

On the other hand, we can show empathy, while AI cannot. And AI cannot think outside of its programs and algorithms, so it cannot find creative ways to solve different new problems because the data collected is not enough and has not been verified for accuracy.

In general, with the current trend, AI is an effective way for businesses to keep up with market developments and fully meet customer needs. However, we should not rely too much on AI because humans are still the core factor.

However, people still have to improve their understanding and update other necessary knowledge to be able to master smart tools in the future.

Mr. Le Quoc Vinh emphasized that AI is a way for businesses to keep up with market developments and fully meet customer needs. (Photo: TL)

- In the Vietnamese market at this time, when AI has not yet dominated too much shopping behavior, KOC (Key Opinion Consumer - key consumers who have a great influence on the market) is emerging as a trend. What do you think about this phenomenon?

KOCs have a small influence and only target a certain group of customers. Although KOCs are a good sales solution, they cannot change customers' feelings towards the brand. Building friendliness and connecting with customers is still the job of the brand manager.

Brands need to realize that they cannot survive on KOCs because KOCs do not represent the quality of their products. Each KOC has a community group and they are only strong and profitable within that group.

Therefore, KOC is just a channel creator to communicate within a certain customer group, it cannot replace other professional marketing solutions.

In fact, as long as people are willing to follow suit and let others influence their purchasing decisions, KOC will still work. But that is not always true, especially in recessions. People will be more cautious in making purchasing decisions.

KOC is a “tool” with a limited lifespan, it will be replaced when something better comes along and cannot be used forever.

I think KOC is a temporary phenomenon, only philosophy and solutions have long-term value.

- Thank you for the chat!

Trinh Trang

Source