Trend 11: Artificial intelligence (AI) as a service & AI-driven marketing offers new potential

Although there is no single definition of AI, it’s best understood as machines that simulate the thought processes of human intelligence through assimilation, learning and subsequent application of logic to complete an action quickly and without human intervention.

Our expectation of marketing is that it must be fully data-driven. However, in a semi-automated or manual environment, this has often been difficult, with delays caused mainly by slow decision-making.

AI has helped a range of software-as-a-service (SaaS) tools make automated decisions almost instantaneously, and this allows companies to make a radical impact. Quite a few of these tools have also made their way into the travel industry in recent years. They range from tools dealing with content creation, image verification, search engine optimisation, e-mail delivery optimisation, content quality, chatbots, social listening, translation and much more. Examples here.

Persado talks about Motivation AI to create personalised messages tailored to drive travel booker engagement and trust. Here are a few more examples.

Travel management company TravelPerk uses Twilio to segment the market to create a better customer experience.

Companies large and small have the opportunity to use these tools to optimise their marketing efforts and achieve a level of marketing impact that was previously unattainable.

For companies looking to take AI opportunities into their own hands, Artificial Intelligence as a Service (AIaaS), while relatively new, is likely to have an even greater impact. As you might expect, larger tech companies like Google and Amazon also offer such services, but I’m more excited about the potential of a service like Levity for small and medium-sized travel and hospitality businesses.

Pricing is another important area currently included in revenue management tools (RM) and often supported by AI. However, there will be more and more cases where RM and pricing will overlay marketing campaigns more effectively by enabling dynamic pricing. Hopper’s AI-powered recommendation engine predicts when the price of a flight is likely to rise (the worst time to buy) and when it’ll fall (the best time to buy).

So what else can we expect from AI and related innovation? Could it be a personalised AI analyst for your business? ANIE is an artificial mind that not only listens to the voice of the customer, but also understands it and helps your business act on it.