Memo to Marketers: Your AI technology isn't Replacing Humans - &THEN17

From Larry Smith's vantage point, some fear mongers and mainstream media outlets are giving artificial intelligence (AI) a bad name. Broadly speaking, general-purpose or strong AI is characterized by "Star Wars"-style or "Terminator"-type technology that's designed to replace humans, according to Smith. The reality, he says, is that businesses are adopting special-purpose or weak AI aimed at taking on fairly narrow tasks, such as customer relationship management (CRM), sales prospecting and performance optimization. "It is important to distinguish what kind of AI you are talking about and what problems it will solve," says Smith, a partner at IT consulting firm Thematix Partners. During DMA's & THEN marketing conference Oct. 8-10 in New Orleans, Smith will offer his insights about AI during a session titled "State of Play: AI-Enabled Personalization."