Artificial intelligence is one of the most disruptive forms of technology shaping the marketing profession since the dawn of the Internet. One of the most important ways companies are taking advantage of AI is with SEO. They can use AI to improve both their onsite and offsite SEO strategies to reach more customers through organic search. In the modern-day world, having a digital presence is becoming increasingly important. Internet usage is on the rise and embracing digital marketing tools can boost brand awareness and business success.

Machine learning software and pattern recognition have come a long way since their birth during the 1960s, especially during the past decade. The rise in automated and AI-powered marketing, where repetitive tasks are delegated to machines and bots, is allowing many businesses to shift their focus to data-driven marketing, and to better address marketing challenges. In the absence of machine learning technology, the processing of large amounts of data – something required to predict customer behaviour – is incredibly time-consuming. It also reduces the chances of successful business outcomes. However, when all this data mining is processed by computers, efficient and accurate predictions can be made to determine the "next best action" for each individual customer.

The modern marketer has a single-most, overarching and critical objective: to deliver the right message at the right time to the right audience, efficiently. This holy grail for most marketers isn't just a lofty goal, it's unobtanium--where the most we dare hope is to learn a few things during our quest for it. Or at least that's what I thought before I heard from 70 marketing executives, practitioners and AI enthusiasts who provided their insights on the future of AI, as it relates to marketing. It's not about what we see in Westworld or Skynet or even Joshua (of 1983 WarGames). Instead, the future of AI promises marketers an opportunity to connect with customers, in a personal way, with speed and precision. For some marketers, expert definitions and explanations of artificial intelligence are a jumbled heap of big words and concepts.

Engineers alone also do not ensure success. Marketing executives agree that domain expertise and business needs should drive A.I. research, not the other way around. "The most important thing is not advanced math models or complicated neural networks," Yulia Khansvyarova of SEMrush clarifies. "The most important part is feature engineering. The more domain knowledge you have, the better. Constantly verify your hypothesis with your end users."

Did you know there are over 3,874 companies offering marketing technology? That's how many companies are featured on Scott Brinker's behemoth 2016 Marketing Technology Landscape Supergraphic, which drives home the challenge of navigating the marketing industry. "Marketing has the unique challenge of not having a typical stack or process. If you look into any Fortune 500 company, they will have hundreds of products that they are stitching together," says Eric Stahl, an SVP of Product Marketing at Salesforce. Leading marketing experts agree that the plethora of tools available to marketers and advertisers is both a blessing and a curse.

Traditionally, marketing has been about broadcasting your generic message to as many people as possible with the hopes that someone will listen. But this approach is about as persuasive as the guy on the street corner dancing to Kanye West tunes and spinning around the discounted tax prep promotion sign. But for most of us, it's not going to drive action. So instead of a flashing sign with a broad message, it's a well-crafted, personalized message that works to remind you that yes, you did buy a house this year and yes, you can save $3,500 if you prepay your interest. Modern brands like Netflix, Uber, and Airbnb are already taking this personalized approach to marketing.

The campaign execution, testing, optimization and analysis work that marketers are required to perform manually today has grown too immense for them to handle effectively. Artificial intelligence marketing is a real solution to the nearly impossible challenges facing marketing professionals everywhere. Marketers today must coordinate their campaigns for dozens of devices, technologies, and channels, meeting individual users with messaging relevant to who they are and what they want. Achieving that near 1:1 consumer targeting takes plenty of data from each relevant channel -- it takes so much data, in fact, that dealing with it effectively has become an almost impossible challenge for most organizations. The overwhelming response to the problem of big data overload has been to adopt a wide array of software tools to organize information and surface insights.