This article was originally published on CMSWire by Sean Zinsmeister, Vice President of Product Marketing at Infer. The buzz surrounding machine learning and artificial intelligence (AI) in the consumer world has rapidly bled over into the enterprise. Much of this hype stems from the new consumer trends that hint at the possibilities of AI, such as self-driving cars and intelligent voice-first products like Amazon's Alexa and Apple's Siri. At the same time, mainstream cloud adoption and ever-increasing computing power in the form of new solutions like Google Spanner are accelerating the development, accuracy and speed of AI's underlying foundations, from data availability and spam detection, to machine learning, predictive analytics and natural language processing. So it should come as no surprise that sales and marketing leaders are questioning what all this means for their departments and companies.

The prospects of what artificial intelligence (AI) can do for marketing and other business initiatives is well-documented. McKinsey & Company, for instance, reported in a study that AI improved on traditional analytics techniques in 69 percent of potential use cases. The real challenge is how to actually implement AI in your marketing processes and where you begin. Marketers are asking that question over and over, according to William Ammerman, executive VP of Engaged Media. "That's their first question: what do I do now?"

The prospects of what artificial intelligence (AI) can do for marketing and other business initiatives is well-documented. McKinsey & Company, for instance, reported in a study that AI improved on traditional analytics techniques in 69 percent of potential use cases. The real challenge is how to actually implement AI in your marketing processes and where you begin. Marketers are asking that question over and over, according to William Ammerman, executive VP of Engaged Media. "That's their first question: what do I do now?"

In order to provide first-class service, companies need to be able to link complete and accurate customer data for chatbots to become a successful customer service tool. The results are obvious - it is time to get started today Nick Ismail Conversations around artificial intelligence and virtual reality are becoming increasingly common within the marketing space. It's unsurprising as these technologies are on track to fundamentally change customer service by 2020, with marketers looking to AI as a potential way to improve their customer service offering. In a recent study conducted by Oracle Marketing Cloud, 80% of the sales and marketing managers questioned already use the new technology or plan to do so by 2020. But what lies behind the hype?

There's been an explosion of chatbots on Facebook messenger over the last 12 months, but the majority of these rely on scripted conversations rather than Natural Language Processing. This means they answer your question with a canned response, or guide you through a pre-set decision tree, rather than genuinely understanding what you say, or responding with true'intelligence'. On the day, the team behind Just Eat's popular Facebook bot explained how it was built. The process began, as all good processes do, with a spreadsheet. This listed out every plausible question a user might ask, remark they might make, or sweary insult they might type in shouty capital letters. The team then wrote a canned response for each.

The buzz surrounding machine learning and artificial intelligence (AI) in the consumer world has rapidly bled over into the enterprise. Much of this hype stems from the new consumer trends that hint at the possibilities of AI, such as self-driving cars and intelligent voice-first products like Amazon's Alexa and Apple's Siri. At the same time, mainstream cloud adoption and ever-increasing computing power in the form of new solutions like Google Spanner are accelerating the development, accuracy and speed of AI's underlying foundations, from data availability and spam detection, to machine learning, predictive analytics and natural language processing. So it should come as no surprise that sales and marketing leaders are questioning what all this means for their departments and companies. At a basic level, AI is about replacing human function with computers.

If you think mobile apps have lost their charm and using them doesn't excite you anymore, you're in for a real surprise. Chatbots, or bots, are taking the digital world by storm, and they're even getting integrated into mobile apps. Even industry giants are encouraging developers to work on their chatbot platforms. In April 2016, Facebook allowed all developers and businesses to build chatbots for its Messenger service. Marketers can have a field day with this, because it allows them to interact with customers and prospects. For some businesses, chatbots can replace humans in customer service, while for others, it can become a powerful marketing tool.

Thank you for subscribing to the monthly THINK Marketing newsletter. Here's what CMOs, CIOs and others need to know to make the most of AI in their marketing initiatives in 2017 and beyond. For years, marketing was considered more art than science. But more recently, as marketing automation software has proliferated, marketers have had to blend the art of storytelling with the science of data. Then along comes artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning, which promise to help marketers make sense of all that data.

For years, marketing was considered more art than science. But more recently, as marketing automation software has proliferated, marketers have had to blend the art of storytelling with the science of data. Then along comes artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning, which promise to help marketers make sense of all that data. Some experts believe AI's impact on marketing will be hugely significant, that it could even change the nature of marketing entirely -- enabling brands to break through the noise and deliver a more personalized experience to customers. Not surprisingly, though, there are challenges ahead for organizations seeking to add AI to their marketing technology stack.

For years, marketing was considered more art than science. But more recently, as marketing automation software has proliferated, marketers have had to blend the art of storytelling with the science of data. Then along comes artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning, which promise to help marketers make sense of all that data. Some experts believe AI's impact on marketing will be hugely significant, that it could even change the nature of marketing entirely -- enabling brands to break through the noise and deliver a more personalized experience to customers. Not surprisingly, though, there are challenges ahead for organizations seeking to add AI to their marketing technology stack.