If you’ve been watching the headlines on artificial intelligence, you might be convinced it’s coming for your job. Over the last few months, AI passed some of the world’s most grueling tests in law, medicine, and engineering.

Indeed, it isn’t just those directly threatened by AI bemoaning the fact that robots are making an increasing proportion of the art and music while everything that fits under the header “back-breaking labor” is still the province of humans.

It sure seems like we’re on our way to a future where AI sits out on the beach and contemplates life’s big questions while humans work more and more for less and less. Yet, a different perspective changes things. When you look beyond the marketing hype, there’s a lot AI can’t do.

As quick as some are to say AI will “change everything” in six months, a year, or five years, this isn’t the first new technology that doesn’t quite match the hype. After all, we’ve all been waiting for that full self-driving car for two decades – and it’s always “six months away.”

When it comes to capturing the creative spark humans bring to the table, there’s no reason to believe AI will see its big breakthrough any faster. There are good reasons why – for the life of your business and probably YOUR lifetime – you want humans rather than robots to do your marketing.

A Marketing Agency Punctures the Hype Around Artificial Intelligence

As a top marketing agency, we closely watch the progress of technology that reshapes the way you and your customers do business. We admit, there’s a lot AI is already good for. It’s great for analyzing patterns in data, such as website traffic patterns that help you understand emerging trends.

But those tools already existed. The difference today is the hype.

For every success with AI, there’s a failure that’s just as significant. It all comes down to using it in ways it isn’t ready for. As titans like Microsoft and Google pump up their products to create a media frenzy, the gulf between AI’s intended use cases and how it’s being presented is widening.

Let’s take a close look at the real state of AI right now:

FACT: AI Doesn’t Think

One of the biggest misunderstandings around AI today is what it actually does.

AI based on Large Language Models, like ChatGPT, are trained using millions of pages of information taken from the internet. Nobody reviews all this data to make sure it’s accurate. Instead, they make changes to the models as problems crop up and end users report them.

An AI doesn’t know what any of that text means. It’s not thinking or making decisions. So, what is it doing? Like predictive text on your phone, it detects patterns. It returns the next word likely to fit your expectations. Those words become sentences, and so on.

FACT: AI Doesn’t Know Your Audience

Even the most advanced AI has a “cut-off date” beyond which it has no information. Models are periodically updated with new data, but years can elapse before that happens. In effect, it’s not much better than a high school history textbook that mysteriously cuts off in the 1960s.

In the same way, AI doesn’t think, it doesn’t really know your audience, either. It can’t extrapolate on data and tell you what concerns influence an individual’s buying decisions. To really understand how humans think, you need other humans.

FACT: AI Can and Does Torpedo Businesses and Reputations

Recently, a lawyer was found citing bogus cases he got in responses from ChatGPT. When preparing for a case, an attorney looks for similar issues in the law that support their position. It appears that ChatGPT cheerfully made up a number of cases that never existed.

That’s another example of the key point: AI follows patterns, it doesn’t have ideas or make decisions. So, when you use AI, your output can only be as good as the average of the data it was trained on. If that data happens to be completely false, it’s your reputation on the line.

FACT: AI-Written Content Just Isn’t That Good

If you’ve seen one page written by an AI, you’ve seen them all. Plus, Google is one of today’s AI front-runners, and it can detect AI-written content in ways nobody else can. It’s only a matter of time before the Big G starts penalizing AI-generated content – or at least content written by AIs it doesn’t own.

In every way, hiring a marketing agency is simply better than using AI.

Your Business Is for Humans – Your Marketing Should Be, Too

Knowing all this, why are so many marketing agencies jumping on the AI bandwagon?

The reasons are pretty simple:

• To make their services more cost-effective, usually by cutting headcounts somewhere along the line.
• To squeeze out more of a profit by substituting software for real experience and hoping for the best.
• To seem relevant by telling clients they hope don’t know better that they’re “on the cutting edge.”

Not a year or two from now, but ten or twenty – all these bugs might be worked out. For now, it’s crucial to take AI claims with a grain of salt. Even with some of the world’s biggest companies on the case, it has a long way to go before you can trust it with the future of your business. And until then, you shouldn’t have to.

While so many people are predicting “the end of humans,” we see the opposite happening. Savvy business owners in service-based industries are asking the hard questions about which parts of their marketing will actually get handled by a qualified human being, not a facsimile of one.

New York Ave is the marketing agency that’s here to help.

New York Ave – Marketing by humans, not robots.™

In a world where everyone is looking to AI for a magic solution – profit without effort – we’ve decided to go in a different direction. Our team is committed to maintaining the human touch in everything we do.

That means an agency of design by humans, development by humans, strategy by humans, writing by humans, and social media by humans. At the end of the day, that’s what our clients are paying for. Custom means more than ever before because now you either have real human ingenuity or a pale imitation.

Which one is best for your business? We think we know the answer.

But you don’t have to take our word for it. You can see the difference from the very start when you contact New York Ave about your marketing goals. It all begins with a conversation, either right here at our office or on video chat. You’ll be talking to real people who want to understand your needs, not a chatbot.

Technology is a great employee, but a terrible boss. Don’t follow the hype: Put tech in its place and choose a marketing agency of humans. Contact us to discover more or get started today.