November 13, 2023
“The Business Guide to AI,” the first live event of this multi-channel program took place at the 2023 ANA Global CMO Growth Council Summit in Orlando, following the recent announcement of Bloomberg Media’s partnership with the ANA Global CMO Growth Council. BloombergAiQ, our proprietary AI-driven audience and content platform, indicates that marketing professionals are more likely to engage in AI-related content than those in other leadership roles, so it was only fitting that the inaugural event took place at this premier gathering of the world’s foremost marketing professionals. Our findings show that, on average, individuals in Marketing are 1.5x more likely to engage with AI content than the general Bloomberg business audience, making them the profession most interested in consuming AI-content.
At this exclusive “The Business Guide to AI” event, marketing leaders convened to immerse in Bloomberg Media’s latest insights on the GenAI landscape, as well as groundbreaking case studies and presentations from partners at Google and Microsoft. Through the dynamic discussion and work sessions that followed, those in attendance shared their own perspectives on actionable and practical insights to leverage AI to accelerate businesses.
Coming out of this inaugural meeting, here are the three key takeaways that business leaders should keep in mind:
- Start by “Getting Your Data Right:” The success of AI applications is largely dependent on its building blocks: data inputs. With AI, the definition of a dataset expands significantly, including elements like brand guidelines, imagery, copy samples, and more. There is an increased focus on ensuring data is optimized as there is much to gain from being more disciplined in curating these inputs as AI becomes more widely adopted. For example, Toni Clayton-Hine, Chief Marketing Officer at EY Americas, explained that her organization’s AI strategy involves “understanding how to turn data into better insights for our customers.”
- View AI as a Tool, not a Strategy: Despite the hype and potential of AI, its existence does not replace the importance of laying the groundwork with a strong marketing strategy. Instead, AI should be viewed as a tool within a marketer’s toolkit, able to be leveraged against this core strategy. Mauricio Ferreira, General Director at Microsoft Business Applications, articulated this idea best when saying, “AI is not a strategy. You need to have your strategy clear and the problem you’re trying to solve – and then you think of AI as an enabler.”
- Explore Applications that are Authentic to your Brand: While AI can be applied in countless ways, it is critical to use your brand’s core purpose as a lens for determining use cases for your organization. Business leaders are seeing success in exploring a handful of “test arenas” instead of spreading resources too thinly across too many AI-related projects. Angela Zepeda, CMO at Hyundai Motor America, shared “where we’re digging deep right now is on our website,” developing a ChatBot that is improving customer experience.
To share these AI-related learnings from business leaders with a wider audience, “The Business Guide to AI” is also launching a video series which will be distributed across Bloomberg Media’s owned channels. The first segment of this series features professionals from the ANA, Bloomberg Media, EY Americas, Hyundai Motor America, Meta, and Microsoft, and can be viewed below.
For more information on “The Business Guide to AI,” visit here.
To speak to someone about “The Business Guide to AI,” please contact mcatapano3@bloomberg.net and global-cmo-growth-council@ana.net.