By Adam Fingerman, ArcTouch Mobile & Connected Experiences
No doubt about it, bots are coming. Forgive the hyperbole, but I mean really coming — in a life-changing, business-disrupting way.
Think beyond today’s experimental first-generation chatbots on consumer messaging platforms like Facebook Messenger, Kik and WeChat — and the enterprise versions of these digital denizens that live on business chat services like Slack and Skype. They’re interesting — and sometimes they serve as useful brand ambassadors. But despite the hype, they’re not exactly disruptive.
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Someday soon, bots alone will inhabit a humanless, emotionless virtual world. And they will be empowered to do business, bot to bot. Personal bots, representing consumers, will negotiate with business bots, representing brands. Information is exchanged. Purchases are made. Money flows. No humans involved.
This humanless world has the potential to disrupt a lot of things. Especially as you start to think about how we do business.
Modern Day Marketing
Technology has influenced marketing greatly in recent years — through social and digital media, and increasingly precise analytics, marketers know more about consumer behavior than ever before. That said, humans are still in control of what to do with said information. Because we’re limited in our ability to synthesize the mass of data available, we still make buying decisions primarily based on emotion. And the industry knows this — marketing today must still impact people when it comes to emotion and influence.
But imagine a bot with unlimited and instantaneous access to information about you and the world you live in. This bot can synthesize millions of reviews and pieces of information, then analyze it in seconds in a purely logical process — void of emotion. As we interact with our personal assistant bots and our trust builds, we will use them to progress and automate more of our daily tasks. Imagine a future where a bot is trusted and empowered to make your own personal buying decisions. It may not be that far off.
This raises a few interesting questions: Without direct human contact, how do businesses build brand loyalty? Do businesses even need to build brand loyalty? How do new businesses with no existing awareness build their brand and have it known?
With bots that represent their businesses, of course. Bots will negotiate with bots.
Removing The Human Factor
Imagine you’ve gone on vacation and your favorite pair of jeans rip. You’re unaware of the surrounding options, and need a replacement ASAP. Instead of spending a lot of time searching the Internet to find the brand that’s right for you, you tell your digital assistant what you want. You Include a few basic parameters (size, style, budget). You even empower it to make a purchase on your behalf. To do so, it will scan consumer reviews, find live promotions, and negotiate with bot assistants that represent companies selling jeans.
When removing the human factor and emotion from a marketing strategy, businesses will have to learn the most effective way to stand out from the crowd. But how will a brand persuade your personal assistant bot? How can a brand bot be discoverable, influential and likable? How will a brand improve its reputation or influence personal assistant bot? Certainly, these are questions that businesses will have to address to successfully inhabit the bot-to-bot marketing landscape.
Where Do Businesses Go From Here?
I recently helped guide a discussion about a bot-to-bot universe at WPP’s Stream, held in Ojai, Calif. WPP is the world’s largest group of marketing and advertising services companies (including ArcTouch). As I was surrounded by some incredibly successful agency leaders, I tried to create a picture of this bot-to-bot universe, one completely rooted in logical buying decisions. Some couldn’t quite get a grip on what the future of AI-powered agents means for marketing. It’s hard for us to make this leap when many brands and their marketing agencies are still grappling with the change from traditional ad buying to programmatic advertising. A humanless, emotionless world of bot buyers and sellers is tough to reconcile.
I certainly don’t have all the answers. But I am confident that this AI-powered virtual assistant future will still be centered on great user experiences. Brands and businesses that create great products have always won — and that will continue. It’s just that in this bot-to-bot world, the practice of marketing will have to be a lot more logical.
Adam Fingerman was working on a list of potential apps well before the app store was introduced. That prescient list of his still exists and some of the ideas on it illuminate how ArcTouch has maintained its leading position in the mobile app development industry since 2008. Fingerman’s ace in the hole — his foresight — helps keep ArcTouch on top of product strategy, design, and implementation. Before founding ArcTouch, Fingerman worked in product management and marketing at Apple, Lucent, and Roxio. His experience creating and introducing award-winning products has guided over 400 apps to market.
