- Jessica Jensen, CMO of Indeed, said that AI is a powerful tool for marketing.
- Marketers who experiment with AI and connect with societal value will be the most successful.
- This article is part of the CXO AI Playbook series.
The rise of generative AI has led workers across many industries to question their future. Marketers are no exception.
As CMO of Indeed, I oversee a marketing team of 400+ people where each is dedicated to helping people get jobs and helping employers hire. Every day, we’re exploring how we can use AI to work better and how all marketing jobs are changing.
On the one hand, it’s thrilling to ride this new wave of innovation. But on the other, we need to ensure humans keep their hands firmly on the wheel. If we over-index on the power of technology, we run the very real risk of harming our audiences and our businesses.
How AI is changing marketing
It’s often said that content is king, and today AI is super-charging content. We recently used OpenAI GPT-4 APIs to dramatically speed up new content creation for job seekers at Indeed.
Using AI, we’re creating job seeker content 75% faster than before and we are saving over $10 million using these tools.
But let’s also remember, AI is flawed. While we can use AI to create content faster and more efficiently than ever, we must be mindful not to inadvertently perpetuate biases.
For example, during one test, we asked the tool to write up a few sentences on gender bias in the workplace. What the tool delivered was focused purely on men and women, leaving out other under-represented groups.
To help avoid this, we designed and tested a process with meticulous fact checking and bias identification because we know that Large Language Models (LLM) can sometimes incorporate outdated job and gender roles. We ensure our content experts always oversee final reviews for brand identity and inclusivity.
As marketers, we also recognize that a powerful image can convey more than words alone. This year, we’ve employed Midjourney, a generative artificial intelligence program, to create design options for various campaign graphics.
Our creative team used this technology to curate and make final decisions quickly. We compressed a lengthy process of graphic exploration from weeks to days. While AI’s speed impresses, we give priority to human input throughout the process to ensure quality and minimize bias.
Why? Because, we recently asked a GenAI tool to show us “a group of disabled people” and what it delivered was imagery of only people in wheelchairs. AI failed to show us people who represent this group in inclusive ways. Lacking diversity and the right representation mix would be catastrophic, against our brand, and what we’re trying to achieve as a business.
How AI is changing the role of marketers
Our roles as marketers will also change. The Indeed Hiring Lab, our in-house team of global labor economists, recently studied how AI may affect jobs and the skills needed to perform them. They analyzed 55 million job postings and over 2,600 skills and determined that GenAI will impact almost all jobs.
The research shows that marketing jobs are among the occupational groups with the highest exposure to GenAI. Our economists also found that GenAI can perform 85% of the skills listed in marketing job postings well, like copywriting, creating images, compiling videos, and more (Interestingly child care and construction work are at lower threat from AI).
Is it time for marketers to panic? No, but it is time to pay attention and to experiment.
More importantly, as the world speeds up, we, as marketers, must come together and recognize the impact our work has on society. We need to ensure that humans control and edit AI outputs to fully represent and empower all people in society.
Marketers who will succeed in the future are those who connect business value with societal value. At Indeed, we’re dedicated to creating opportunities for all, and so our work as marketers must welcome everyone.
Jessica Jensen is CMO of Indeed and a columnist for CMO Insider.
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