Applications of AI in Marketing

• Brands are using artificial intelligence to understand user behavior and needs. Users usually leave online footprints whenever they use the internet. Marketers can leverage a users' social media conversations and search data to understand their needs.
• AI can also help detect emotions and sentiment from user data. Through this data, a specific user can be targeted, thereby making it possible to personalize service/product recommendation.
•  Sales automation is another area where AI can be applied. Identifying potential buyers and targeting those prospects is a hectic task for sales professionals. However, this process can be automated by using artificial intelligence to predict user behavior, thereby saving time and reducing human efforts.
• AI can also be used to optimize customer support, curate content, and power recommendation engines and virtual assistance.

Challenges Facing AI in Marketing

•  Implementation of AI is a major barrier impeding its mainstream adoption. Although many applications incorporate machine-learning and can act independently, human supervision and management is still required in certain instances. Many organizations require external help in order to benefit from artificial intelligence, however, "AI talent is notoriously scarce."
• Also, there is a transparency issue in AI known as the “black box problem.” Artificial intelligence is usually unable to explain its deductions; this "makes it a concept too impractical—and unnerving—to deploy comfortably."