There's a lot of talk about AI's potential—its future possibilities and predictions. But let me assure you, the moment for AI is not just coming; it's here, it's now, and it's making waves across all industries. And what’s specifically interesting to me is that it’s changing the world of marketing and digital platforms.

But what about the barriers to entry? It's important to remember that incorporating AI into your operations doesn't mean a full-scale overhaul is necessary. At Media.Monks, we understand that each brand is unique and some may require a more iterative approach. This perspective allows for cost-effectiveness and accessibility while still benefiting from the AI wave. A phased introduction of AI-driven improvements can bring immediate benefits to your customers and your business performance. You might begin with an AI chatbot to enhance customer service, or leverage machine learning to personalize content for each website visitor. Initial steps like this can provide quick wins, delivering enhanced user engagement and improved conversion rates. As these enhancements demonstrate their value, you can gradually expand AI's role within your digital landscape. It's about creating a tailored, strategic path towards AI integration, instead of diving headfirst into the deep end.

So, let’s take a journey into the current and very real applications of AI within the digital platforms landscape, areas where AI is not just delivering promises, but measurable results for marketers.

Here’s where to get started with AI.

Integration of AI with traditional platforms. The integration of AI with conventional platforms is helping businesses refine operations and customer experiences. The merging of CRM systems with AI, for example, allows a brand to learn from its customers’ behaviors in real-time, thus offering better service and products tailored to individual preferences.

Optimizing user experience. AI-driven data analysis is providing actionable insights that directly enhance user experiences. Whether it’s through customized content, personalized interfaces, or the elimination of user flow pain points, AI is driving a new era of user-centric platforms.

Facilitating personalized marketing. Gone are the days of generic, one-size-fits-all marketing. AI is enabling a new level of personalization that makes every interaction feel like it's uniquely crafted for the individual user. From product recommendations to personalized messaging, AI is helping brands forge deeper connections with their customers.

Enhancing analytics. AI-powered predictive analytics are transforming how businesses understand their customers and markets. These tools provide an unprecedented level of insight into future customer behavior, market trends, and potential business risks.

Cross-department collaboration. AI isn’t just for tech teams. It’s providing opportunities for seamless collaboration between departments, helping to create unified, efficient approaches to everything from product development to customer service.

AI solves many of the challenges brands are dealing with right now.

Next, let’s look at some great real-world examples where we have worked on bringing transformational improvements to key KPIs by both iterative and larger form implementation of AI enhancement. Here are some of the challenges we are helping with day to day:

“Help, I’m drowning in a sea of content!” When the volume and complexity of the information is overwhelming for visitors, sometimes standard search just won't cut it. A potential application of AI here is to create an intelligent search functionality that leverages natural language processing and machine learning. It understands user queries better, allows for conversational dialogue and provides more relevant results, continuously improving based on user interaction patterns.

“How do we extend meaningful connections with customers whilst building a community of users?” An AI-enhanced platform could provide personalized content based on customer interests and product usage patterns. By understanding each customer’s interaction with the product, AI can tailor content, extending the brand experience and fostering an engaging online community around shared product experiences.

“How do we cope with the daunting task of managing job applications from a vast pool of diverse applicants and numerous roles?” Here, AI can be employed to develop self-segmentation tools and create individual user journeys based on each user's unique profile and preferences. AI can analyze data at scale, drawing insights that allow a recruitment agency to tailor each experience and guide potential applicants towards roles that suit their skills and aspirations.

“How do we effectively showcase an extensive network of services and provide evidence of campaign effectiveness to potential customers?” By implementing AI-driven analytics, this company could deliver detailed campaign performance reports to customers, even predicting potential future outcomes based on historical data. This approach provides a tangible measure of ROI for clients.

Each of these scenarios illustrates the transformative potential of AI within the digital platform landscape. Broadly speaking, AI complements and enhances our existing strategies, enabling us to craft more engaging, personalized, and efficient experiences for users. AI isn't just a box to be checked; it's a versatile tool that we are using daily to create meaningful and impactful digital experiences.

Prepare yourself for sustained success with AI.

With AI’s potential being realized in real time, the thrill is in watching these developments unfold and harnessing them in transformative ways. Remember, the future is not some distant point on the horizon; it’s happening right now. By embracing AI in a thoughtful and strategic manner, we can achieve immediate wins and lay the groundwork for sustained, long-term success.

We’ve all seen and heard how generative AI can supercharge creative content production by creating large volumes of images, video and copy in just seconds. This is only one sliver of AI’s potential, because conversational interfaces that learn from us will profoundly transform the way we search for and discover products and information. And we’re already seeing it happen before our eyes: Instacart offers contextual advice for grocery shopping, Zalando created a virtual fashion consultant, and Intercom launched a GPT4-powered business messaging solution that can solve 50% of customer questions instantly. AI is changing the way people interact with your brand, and this is igniting a paradigm shift in brand interfaces and product design.

For many brands, this creates a challenge. How do we connect people with the right answer, content or product they are looking for? The examples above hint at an answer: AI and LLMs go a long way in making consumer experiences more intuitive. Here’s how we’re thinking about it in our Platforms practice.

New search behaviors will elevate the role of the dotcom.

One area that will drastically influence consumer behavior is search. Search is already the default starting point for consumers, but Google’s new AI-powered results page will soon be the only place a user needs to visit, bringing comparison and conversion onto one screen.

This brings some urgency to how brands approach their own platforms, because to bring their products to the top of search, they’ll need to think less about keywords and more about context and intent. What context would users search for around your products? What would they intend to do with it? What values do your offerings deliver to people?

No one yet can say how to solve SEO in the future. But we can help brands begin to integrate this layer of information into their catalogs and user experiences now to prepare for that kind of change—because in this new world, I see an elevated role for the brand dotcom. Think of Google as the department store that carries all brands, and your platform as the expressive branded spaces users will choose to go to connect and build a relationship. Delivering on this expectation will be the key factor to success in the age of AI.

AI is elevating the brand experience.

I’ll extend the department store analogy a little bit further to illustrate the role of AI on modern digital platforms. A good store employee only asks if they can help at the right moment, and AI will likewise be to gently and organically nudge users through conversation. The difference is that AI will be fully trained on your brand, products and services and can represent those perfectly. Think personal product advice, answers, cross- and up-sales, all in the context of a user’s intent.

A restaurant chain, for example, might use natural language to transform its ordering platform, especially for catering and large orders. Rather than scroll through a menu, users could describe an occasion, like “I’m throwing a birthday party for my 5-year-old son. We’ll have 15 people, mostly children.” The system can then take that information and recommend a customized party package. Any allergies among or dietary restrictions in the group? Not a problem—the AI can edit the order for the customer to review. Think of AI as a butler for your brand and its customers.

More personalized experiences give more opportunities for relationship building.

These little details—why you’re ordering, when you need it by, plus any additional personal requests—go a long way in getting to know your customers. The results are both better customer experiences and the ability to forge hyper-personal relationships, ultimately fulfilling the original promise of digital.

We are finally moving beyond segments and personas. A properly programmed AI understands every user’s personal sentiments, curiosities and needs, because it’s able to pull from and connect different pieces of data from across the consumer ecosystem. It can remember those facts and become more personal with every interaction, like offering personalized promotions and loyalty incentives honed to every user’s context. This new type of personalization shows great promise for conversion.

It's also great for building customer loyalty, because AI unlocks interactions that are designed specifically for building longer lasting relationships with them. As customers engage over time, their interactions across the platform produce greater and more detailed insights that can be used to further optimize the experience and deliver upon their unique needs.

Start with a sprint, then optimize and personalize.

AI will continue to shape consumer expectations and behaviors, underscoring the need for platforms that can pivot with speed and agility. It’s more important now than ever to be able to listen, learn and adapt to how your customers are engaging.

On the flip side, that means your implementation of AI is also always a work in progress. If any of the above sounds interesting to you, rest assured that you don’t have to make a full overhaul of your website. It starts with looking at what you already have and seeing if your tech stack can support these hyper-personalized experiences. Innovation sprints or experimenting with building better experiences—on the main dotcom or maybe in a separate domain—are great places to start, as are smarter search functions that are fairly easy to implement. Then optimize continuously to perfect your toolkit and extend your ability to personalize.

It's too early to say with utmost specificity how AI will shape customer experiences years down the line. But by realizing how recent AI developments are serving pre-existing marketing goals—more personalized user flows, greater customer loyalty, and an elevated brand experience—it’s clear that now is the time to lay the foundations for AI-powered customer journeys.

Want to learn more about how our platforms team can support you in building more personalized experiences?