Artificial Intelligence for Marketing

CHAPTER 9Your Strategic Role in Onboarding AI

• The cost of goods and services that rely on prediction will fall.
• We will use prediction to perform tasks we previously haven't.
• The value of things that complement prediction will rise.
• Judgment will become more valuable.

Those were the prognostications posited in “The Simple Economics of Machine Intelligence.”¹

As machine intelligence improves, the value of human prediction skills will decrease because machine prediction will provide a cheaper and better substitute for human prediction, just as machines did for arithmetic. However, this does not spell doom for human jobs, as many experts suggest. That's because the value of human judgment skills will increase. Using the language of economics, judgment is a complement to prediction and therefore when the cost of prediction falls demand for judgment rises. We'll want more human judgment.

Being an effective marketing executive depends on executive decision making. Solid executive decision making depends on experience and best practices. You can figure out what those best practices should be and take the lead, or wait for everybody else to figure it out and then catch up.

Leading is better. Be willing to experiment. After all, that's how artificial intelligence works. It's also how we learn. Because of artificial intelligence and machine learning, judgment and boldness will be more valuable than experience and a solid track record.

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